LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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BARREN FIG-TREE. 



Spiritual reading 



FOR LENT. 



X 



/ 






A 



IJraitsIatsa front Hje iErmatt, 






BY 






ETER 




WEST CHESTER '. 

NEW YORK CATHOLIC PROTECTORY PRINT. 

1887. 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by 

Eev. A. GEYER, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



INDEX. 



Page. 

Preface. - - - - - 5 

Introduction. ------ 9 

Chapter I. 

Man was created by God and destined for eternal 

happiness. - - - - 13 

Chapter II. 

Man was created by God and destined for eternal 

happiness. — Continued. - 18 

Chapter III. 

Man must bring forth good and not evil fruit, if he 

would fulfil the end for which he was created. - 24 

Chapter IV. 

Man must bring forth good and not evil fruit, if he 
would fulfil the end for which he was created. 
— Continued. - - - - - - 32 

Chapter V. 

"What good fruit must man bring forth in order to ful- 
fil the end for which he was created ? - - 39 
Chapter VI. 

What good fruit must man bring forth in order to ful- 
fil the end for which he was created ? — Continued,. 45 



4 Index. 

Chapter VII, 

God deals according to His justice with man, if he 
brings forth evil instead of good fruit ; but He 
exercises long- suffering towards him. Yet, this long- 
suffering of God has a limit. - - - 54 
Chapter VIII. 

God deals according to His justice with man, if he 
brings forth evil instead of good fruit ; but He 
exercises long-suffering towards him. Yet, this long- 
suffering of God has a limit. — Continued. - - CI 
Chapter IX. 

Who are the special intercessors for the sinner, when 
the forbearance of God comes to an end? And what 
special means does God employ in order to save the 
sinner ? - 67 

Chapter X. 

Who are the special intercessors for the sinner, when 
the forbearance of God pomes to an end ? And what 
special means does God employ in order to save the 
sinner ? — Continued. - -74 

Chapter XI. 

The dreadful fate of the sinner if he does not repent 
and bring forth good fruit. 
Chapter XII. 79 

The dreadful fate of the sinner if he does not repent 

and bring forth good fruit.— Conclusion. 85 



PREFACE. 



A good parable is like to a good landscape, drawn 
by a skilful painter : every single object is made more 
agreeable to the mind by the just relation of all the 
parts to one another. For, as in painting, if several 
things were represented severally, in distinct pieces — 
in one a hill, in another a wood, in a third a shepherd, 
and in a fourth & flock of sheep, how flat and dull would 
these divided images appear, without any design or 
unity of story in them ! 

But place in one and the same landscape a hill, by 
its gentle rise displaying the beauty of its verdure ; on 
the side of which many spreading trees give a shelter 
and coolness to all beneath them : paint the shepherd 
as sitting under one of them, and looking out with a 
watchful eye after his charge of sheep, while they are 
feeding in a dispersed manner through the valley be- 
low, or on the slope of the hill; and then from the 
whole picture there will arise something cheerful to the 
sight. Every single image will appear more lively, 
and in motion, and will bear its part in the general 
design. 

The same thing happens in the case of parables. 



C) Preface. 

To instance in this particularly, is the parable of the 
barren fig-tree. If our blessed Saviour had said in 
one place, Bring forth good fruit ; in another place, 
Sinners, ivhen called upon by their Divine Judge, icill have 
nothing to offer in their excuse ; and if He had added in a 
third place, that all workers of iniquity shall be condemned ', 
all these three sayings of His would be true ; but they 
would not effect the minds of the readers so much in 
that, their plain dress, as they are apt to do now, when 
they are woven together into one short history, and 
come recommended to our attention by many perti- 
nent and familiar circumstances. The turn of the 
whole parable, and the agreeableness of its several 
parts, one to the other, give a force and a spirit to the 
precepts included in it. 

And, as the mind is thus happily affected with it, so 
does the memor} r retain it longer ; for the whole secret 
of what is called artificial memory, is only to make in 
the mind a sort of faint history ; just enough to tie to- 
gether several loose and incoherent things, which being 
all brought under one set of images, are incorporated, 
as it were, and made to have so much union, that the 
remembrance of one naturallv brings forth that of the 
others. Upon which account, it has always been found 
true, by experience, that there is no better method of 
instructing men in religious knowledge than to ex- 
plain some of the choicest parables of the New Testa- 
ment. 

The book will do little good where it is hastily read 



Preface, 7 

and put aside. Its voice is not one to be heard in the 
streets, or to join in the discussions of the day. It 
rather asks to be admitted to the confidence of those 
who will receive it, in the stillness of their most retired 
and private hours. It offers itself as a companion to 
the thoughtful in their seasons of meditation and their 
times of trial. 

It would touch their religious sensibilities. 

It would feed them with devout thoughts. 

It would store their minds with images of Divine 
purity and love. It would, at least, suggest to them 
the topics of momentous interest, and gently lead 
them to the fountain of comfort, strength, and eternal 
life. 

The Translator. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Although there is not a time, not a day, indeed, I 
might say, not an hour, in human existence, when man 
should not be working for his eternal salvation, yet 
the holy season of Lent, in particular, is a time during 
which the Christian must think quite especially of his 
sanctification, and the salvation of his immortal soul. 
"Behold," I would exclaim with St. Paul, respecting 
this holy season, " now is the acceptable time, now is 
the day of salvation." (II. Cor. vi. 2) 

These are the days when, looking upon the Son of 
God who fasted for our sins, looking upon Christ 
crucified, who gave up His blood and life for the sake 
of our offences, we should fast, perform works of pen- 
ance, die to our sins, and thereby make sure of our 
eternal salvation. 

To this great and holy end our holy Church, who 
has the salvation of souls always in view, has ordered 
us to fast according to the will of Jesus Christ. She 
has chosen the period preceding the holy festival of 
Easter as a time for fasting, because, during this time, 
our Divine Redeemer suffered for our sins, and that we 
may do penance with Him for our own transgressions- 
During this time does the Church put on the color of 
mourning, to remind us to wail over our sins and 
errors, and sincerely to repent for them. During 
this time she orders doleful anthems to be sung 



10 Introduction. 

during the Divine service, instead of hymns of joy, 
to make us feel the grievousness and misery of our 
sins. Towards the end of Lent she demands of us 
to blot out our sins, by tears of contrition, and a 
perfect confession and penance, as Christ blotted them 
out on the cross by His blood. And finally, our holy 
Church demands of us, that when we have, in union 
with our Lord, done sufficient penance for our sins, 
and have risen with Him to a new life, we should in- 
tone a joyous Allelujah on the day of the Resurrection, 
after having gained victory over sin, as He did over 
death, and placed the salvation of our souls in safety, 
during the holy season of Lent. 

Behold the object of fasting. And that the faithful 
should feel themselves more and more impelled to do 
their utmost to attain this object, it is the sacred 
duty of the priest continually to urge them thereto, and 
to keep before their souls the necessity of penance, and 
the return to God ; in a word, the necessity of saving 
their souls. 

Well, now ! I will fulfil this sacred duty, by showing 
you that you are created for the purpose of making 
your souls happy everlastingly, by truly serving God, 
and not only during this holy season, but during the 
whole of your lives, by living virtuously, perform- 
ing good works, and by completely dying to your sins. 
During this important season of the ecclesiastical 
year I shall endeavor to lay all these truths to your 
hearts ; by explaining to you (in the order of its im- 
portant contents) the parable of the barren fig-tree, as 
Jesus Christ relates it to us in the Gospel of St. Luke, 
(xiii. 6-9.) 



Elta $)ural)fe. 



" A certain man," says our Divine Redeemer, "had a 
fig-tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking 
fruit on it, and found none. And he said to the dress- 
er of the vineyard : Behold for these three years I 
come seeking fruit on this fig-tree, and I find none. 
Cut it down therefore ; why cumbereth it the ground ? 
But he answering said to him : Lord, let it alone this 
year also, until I dig about it, and dung it. And if 
happily it bear fruit : but if not, then after that thou 
shalt cut it down." (Luke xiii. 6-9.) 



CHAPTER I. 

■v 

Man is created by God and destined for an eternal happiness. 



" A certain man had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard.''— Luke xiii. 6. 



Our own native reason tells us, without a doubt, 
that man, like the whole creation, must have been 
called into existence by a Supreme Being. For, were 
we to assume that all men are descended by natural 
generation from father and mother, we should still 
have to ask : Whence sprang our first parents, from 
whom all men have descended ? Did they, perchance, 
having no natural parents, come into existence spon- 
taneously ? This could not possibly have been, for if 
all created things must have had an originator, a 
creator, and cannot have suddenly sprung into exist- 
ence, how much more must this be the case with man, 
who has such unspeakably great advantages over all 
creatures, and which can only have been bestowed 
upon him by an Omnipotent Being, by a being 
endowed with the most supreme attributes and perfec- 
tions ; and this highest and most Supreme Being we 
call God. 

What we are told by the light of reason, is confirmed 
in the clearest words by the Holy Scriptures. "In the 
beginning," we find in the first book of Moses (i. 1), 



14 The Barren Fig-tree. 

" God created heaven and earth ; ' ; meaning not 
only the vault of heaven, but likewise everything in 
heaven ; and not only the terrestrial globe, but every- 
thing upon it. " For in six days," says the book of 
Exodus (xx. 11), " the Lord made heaven and earth, 
and the sea and all that are in them ;" this includes 
man, and speaking through the prophet Isaias, God 
says : " I made the earth, and created man upon it." 
(lxv. 12.) 

Behold, O man ! God is thy creator, but if God is 
thy creator, He is also — and think well upon this — thy 
master. He can dispose of thee according to His 
pleasure. He can send thee joy or sorrow, happiness 
or unliappiness, good or evil, and thou canst not com- 
plain of Him. He can destine health or sickness, life 
or death for thee. He can say to death, either, Cut 
down the tree which I have planted, or, Let it stand 
yet a while, and thou mayest not murmur against Him. 
He can place thee in a fruitful soil, or among rocks 
and stones, or, in other words, He has it in His power 
to bestow upon thee either riches or poverty, affluence 
or want, and thou canst have no anger against Him. 

God is tliy Creator and Master ; therefore thou, O 
man, art His servant. He can command thee to do 
what He pleases, and thou must obey Him. He can 
call out to thee : Do this and do not that, and thou 
must obey His will. He can demand of thee to make 
Him a sacrifice of all thou possessest, and thou must 
be ready for this sacrifice. Therefore, man, con- 
sider that thou must always bow before the most holy 
will of thy God, whether it be pleasant to thyself or 
not, difficult or easy. God is thy Creator and Master ; 
thou art His creature, His servant, who must at all 
times say, with St. Paul : " Domine, quid me vis 



The Barren Fig-tree. 15 

facere?" — " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?' 
(Acts ix. 6.) 

God has created thee, O man ; He has planted thee 
upon this earth, as that " certain man 5 planted the 
tig-tree in his vineyard. What an advantage this is 
for thee! Lo ! as the fig-tree is according to its na- 
ture and its fruit, one of the noblest trees, so thou, 
O man, art the noblest creature, after the angels, 
which proceeded from the hand of God. Thou art 
that noble creature, of which the Psalmist David 
says : " Thou hast made him a little less than the an- 
gels." (Ps. viii. 6.) Thou art that noble creature 
on whom God bestowed, as He did upon the angels, 
an immortal soul, destined to live forever with Him 
in His glory. Thou art that noble creature which 
He endowed with an all but angelical mind, with 
a reason such as angels possess. Thou art that 
noble creature on which, in some respects, He show- 
ered more graces than even upon the angels in 
heaven. 

Say, oh man, thou noblest of all creatures on earth, 
canst thou lower thyself so deeply from that sublim- 
ity with which God has invested thee ? Art thou 
acting nobly and as a man should, when, by excesses 
and sensual enjoyments, thou lowerest thyself far be- 
neath the unreasoning beast ? Art thou acting nobly 
when, wallowing in the mire of sin and vice, thou 
humorest all the lusts of the flesh, to a greater degree 
than even the brutes? Art thou acting nobly when, 
like the lower animals, thou breakest into brutal pas- 
sions against a fellow-creature, and couldst even tear 
him to pieces as one wild beast does another? O 
man, noblest of all earthly creatures ! God planted 
thee into this world as a noble tree ; do not, therefore, 



16 The Barren Fig-tree. 

wallow in the mire of sin. Detest, therefore, the 
vices and passions of the flesh, do not live entirely for 
the sinful appetites of thy palate, do not follow the 
evil inclinations of thy corrupt heart. God made 
thee the noblest, the most sublime of His creatures, 
and all thy thoughts and wishes, all thy works and 
desires, should be the noblest and most sublime. 

And say, O man, where has God planted thee ? 
In His vineyard, in His church. Oh, what a prerogative 
for thee, O Christian. What a blessing for thee, that 
the Lord planted thee in His vineyard, — in His holy 
Catholic Church. He did not let thee be born in pa- 
ganism, where thou would st not even have learnt to 
know God and His ever blessed Son, Jesus Christ, and 
wouldst have adored idols of stone and wood as thy 
god ; in paganism, where thou couldst never have 
learnt the will of God, and couldst not have lived ac- 
cording to it, and wouldst probably have given thy- 
self up to sins and vices, as the world and the devil 
desire thee to do at present. And finally, thou 
wouldst have perished eternally. 

He did not let thee be born a Jew, when thou 
wouldst have scorned all belief in His only-begotten 
Son, and cast His graces from thee. He did not let 
thee be born in heresy, in that so-called church, which 
does, indeed, acknowledge Christ as the Saviour of 
mankind, but is steeped in error 5 has deserted the 
fountains of grace, has rejected true Divine worship, 
and has turned the overflowing springs of grace of the 
Church of Christ into dry and empty cisterns. No! 
He, the all-merciful, has planted thee a true fig-tree in 
His vineyard, into the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic 
Church, founded by Himself. Here, in this Church 
alone, are to be obtained the true doctrine without 



The Barren Fig-tree. 17 

error, and all the holy sacraments, with their endless 
graces, founded by Jesus Christ. Here alone are to be 
found the one true sacrifice, with its infinite merits ; 
the true priesthood, endowed with the authority of the 
Son of God, and the true forgiveness of sin through 
the representative of Christ ; here alone we may hope 
to die a happy death, and obtain everlasting life. O 
Catholic Christian ! Had thy Creator placed thee on 
a throne as an emperor, or a king, and given thee 
power over all parts of the globe ; had He given thee, 
for thy own, all that thou canst see from the summit 
of a high mountain ; had He made thee the heir to a 
Crcesus, the heir to the richest man in the world ; then 
He would, indeed, have given thee a happy place in this 
world (though only for this world). But the Lord has 
done far greater things for thee, by receiving thee, 
v/hile yet on this earth, into His kingdom, into His 
vineyard, into His Church, in which to obtain all the 
more surely His kingdom in the world to come. 

Oh ! thank thy Creator for this inestimable grace, 
for this great prerogative which he has bestowed upon 
thee, before so many millions of people, and promise 
Him to use, with all possible zeal, the graces of His 
holy Church, for the good of thy soul, and so attain 
the object for which He has created thee. 



CHAPTER II. 

Man is created by God, and destined for an eternal happiness. 

Continued. 



" A certain man had a ng-tree planted in his vineyard."— Luke xiii. 6. 



" A certain man," our Divine Saviour tells us, '* had 
a fig-tree planted in his vineyard. Let us ask our- 
selves to what end did he plant this tree ? Was it, 
perchance, only that it might fill an emipty place, that 
it might grow, and then, when old enough, shrivel up 
and die, or perhaps be used for fuel ? No, the pos- 
sessor of this fig-tree had a different object in view : it 
was to bear fruit, and fruit both good and plentiful. 
Thus he had a higher end in view, which he meant to 
attain. 

God, the possessor of the large vineyard of the 
earth, has planted thee into this world, and to 
what end ? Perchance to let thee grow here, to 
let thee live either a long or a short time, to let 
thee enjoy the pleasures and lusts of life, and 
then let thee die and corrupt in the grave ? No, 
O Christian ! Thy Creator had, at thy creation, a 
higher and more sublime end in view. He created 
thee for another world, for Himself, for eternal salva- 
tion, not for the possession and enjoyment of this life, 



The Barren Fig-tree. 19 

and its perishable joys and goods. Whence does this 
truth follow in the most infallible manner? It follows, — 
a) From the doctrine and words of Jesus Christ, the Soil of 
God Himself and of His apostles. Has not Jesus Christ 
constantly taught, to His last breath, by word and deed, 
that we are neither to cherish nor respect the perish- 
able joys and possessions of this world, because Ave are 
not created for them ? In the Gospel of St. Matthew 
(vi. 20, 21) He says : * ; But lay up to yourselves 
treasures in heaven, where neither the rust nor the moth 
doth consume, and where thieves do not break through 
nor steal. For where thy treasure is, there is thy 
heart also." And further ; did Jesus promise His 
disciples the riches, honors, and joys of this world? 
or did He not rather invite them to suffer ignominy 
with Him, and to carry the cross? Hail we been 
created for this world and its joys, could Christ have 
said : " Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is 
the kingdom of heaven " ? Could He have said of 
those just men, who suffer everything patiently here 
below, and practise good works zealously, " Be glad 
and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven "' ? 
Could He have said this, if man had been created 
solely for a reward here below ? Could St. Paul 
have written, in his first epistle to the Thessalonians : 
" For God hath not appointed us unto wrath, but 
unto the purchasing of salvation by our Lord Jesus 
Christ" (v. 9), if God had destined us for the short 
sweetness of this world, as it is called by a few happy 
ones of the earth ? Therefore St. Augustine says 
most justly: "Oh, Christian! thy permanent home 
here on earth is the grave, thy true country is here- 
after in heaven." And in another place he says: 
'■ Thou hast created us. O Lord, for Thvself. and. 



20 The Barren Fig-tree. 

therefore, our heart is restless, until it findeth. rest 
in Thee ! ' Accordingly we must not expect much 
happiness here on earth ; but up in heaven's eternal 
home we shall be happy forever. 

This truth is demonstrated more clearly than even 
by the words of the Holy Scriptures, by the fact that — 

b) The Son of God came doiun from heaven to ex- 
plain to us the will of God and to redeem us on the 
cross. 

Say yourselves, would it have been necessary for 
the Son of God to come down from heaven into this 
world, had we only been created for this world ? — - 
Would it have been necessary for the Son of God to 
explain to us the will of God, to enable us, by ful- 
filling the same, to obtain everlasting salvation, if He, 
our Creator, had not destined us for heaven ? And 
finally, would it have been necessary for the Son of 
God to suffer as unspeakably as He did for us, if we 
had not an immortal soul, which He wished to save 
by His death on the cross ? His birth in the stable 
at Bethlehem says to us : Oh, man, thou art not 
created for this world, therefore /come into this world 
to save thee for another world. All His steps, all His 
doctrines and sermons, say to us : Oh, man, I am wan- 
dering from place to place, from town to town, to save 
souls, and lead them to eternal salvation. All His 
sufferings, His heavy cross, His dolorous journey to 
Calvary, the nails in His hands and feet, the spear in 
His side, every drop of blood that flowed from His 
wounds, all call out to us loudly: Oh, man! all. I 
suffer, I suffer only for thee, that thou, who art 
created for eternal life, mayest not be lost forever. 

Verily, had that same fig-tree been planted by its 
owner to no other end than that of growing for a 



The Barren Fig-tree. 21 

time, afterwards only to perish and decay, the gar- 
dener of the vineyard need not have given himself 
much trouble to keep alive and strengthen the tree. 
In the same* way I say to you : Had God only created 
us for the miserable purpose of growing here for a 
time, and then to die and corrupt, truly this would 
not have necessitated all the sufferings and miseries 
to which the Son of God subjected Himself, during 
the thirty-three years which He spent in this vale of 
tears. And if the Son of God had, for that same 
purpose, shed but one drop of His blood, I maintain 
that it would have been shed in vain, nay, been shed 
even for a worthless object He wouli have given the 
highest price which man is capable of valuing for a 
handful of dust and ashes. No, oh, man ; Christ calls 
to thee from the cross : Thou art immortal ; thou art 
created for a high and sublime end ; for this reason I 
pay such a high price, to save thee for this same 
sublime end ; to save thee for heaven and a never- 
ending happiness. 

And how, oh, man, shall I make it clear to you, in 
what consists that future happiness, for which we 
are created ? What shall I tell you, to show how in- 
expressibly happy we shall be, when we have attained 
that happiness ? 

It were vain, were I to attempt to describe the hap- 
piness of heaven, which awaits us ; so I must content 
myself with quoting those words on the subject ut- 
tered by the Holy Ghost and our Lord, by the mouths 
of the prophets and apostles : " How great is the 
multitude of thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou hast 
hidden from them that fear Thee," (Ps. xxx. 20), ex- 
claims the Psalmist. And further, the Son of God 
Himself, when speaking of the glories of the blessed, 



22 The Barren Fig-tree. 

says: "Then shall the just shine as the sun in the 
kingdom of their father." (Matt. xiii. 43.) Therefore 
He calls to the faithful, as if to let them feel by antic- 
ipation the reward for their virtues : " Be glad and 
rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven." 
(Matt. v. 12.) What encouraging and consoling words 
are these ! And finally, St. Paul, who had the grace, 
while still in this world, to have a glimpse of the 
glories of heaven, exclaims in ecstasy over this inex- 
pressible happiness: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear 
heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to 
conceive, what God hath prepared for those that love 
Him." Yes, when we reflect upon this utterance of 
the Apostle's, then Ave can conceive why St. Bernard, 
while pondering over the joys of heaven, should break 
out into the joyous exclamation : " O joy of joys ! O 
joy that passeth all other joys ! Besides thee there 
is no joy ! " 

St. Catherine of Siena tells us how, one day when 
rapt in prayer, she was in spirit transported to the 
glories of heaven, where she beheld the secrets of 
God. Suddenly, awakening from her trance, she tried 
to speak, but sobs choked her voice. 'j-hree days and 
three nights she wept incessantly, and when surprise 
was expressed thereat, she said : " Do not wonder at 
this. Rather should ye wonder that my heart does 
not break every day, when I think on the glories I have 
beheld, and now again find myself in this vale of 
tears." 

Dear Christian ! for that same glory of heaven thou 
art created by God. What an unspeakable happi- 
ness ! Added to this is the fact that that inexpressi- 
ble bliss is, at the same time, eternal, never ending. 

" Of His kingdom," says St. Luke, there shall be 



The Barren Fig-tree. 2U 

no end." (i. 33.) And our Divine Saviour, when 
speaking to His disciples on eternal salvation, says : 
" Your heart shall rejoice ; and your joy no man shall 
take from you." (John xvi. 22.) St. Augustine, full of 
longing for the eternal life, exclaims : " Oh, fountain of 
life ! when shall 1 enter upon the joys of my Lord, 
whence no one will be excluded ? Oh, the sweet, lova- 
ble life ! Oh, blissful life without end ! There is the 
utmost safety, secure rest, a restful joy, a joyful sweet- 
ness, a sweet eternity, eternal bliss ! " 

My brethren, time passes, the sorrows of life pass, 
but not so the everlasting glory, the reward for work 
well done. It knows no change, no end, but remains 
always, remains unto all eternity. Having such prom- 
ises as these, let us not flinch, or grow weary in the 
great battle ; let us not cast off the yoke of Christ. 

When St. Symphorian was being led to his martyr- 
dom, his pious mother followed him on the way thither 
to encourage him to bear his tortures without shrink- 
ing ; and she kept incessantly repeating the words, 
" My child, my child, remember the eternal life ! ' 

O ye Christians ! I likewise call out to you : If you 
find it difficult to live a Christian life, to be converted 
to God, to bear good fruit for heaven, and to tread the 
steep path of virtue ; if the sorrows usually found in 
a Christian life deter you, then look upon the eternal 
reward for which God has created you. Consider that 
for a trifling, short, momentary effort, you will receive 
a great, an eternal reward. Then make cheerfully this 
little effort which the practice of virtue involves, and 
in return you will receive an immense, an everlasting 
reward in the land of the living. 



CHAPTER III- 

Man must bring forth good and not evil fruit, if he would fulfil 
the end for which he was created. 



He came seeking fruit on it."— Luke xiii. 6. 



" To lieaven I will go, to heaven I will go," cried St. 
Aloysius, whenever he thought of the glory of heaven ! 

And truly, my brethren, we also break out into simi- 
lar expressions when we think of the inexpressible 
and eternal joys for which God has created us, and 
are prepared for us in His heavenly kingdom, if we 
truly serve Him. For, can there be a greater bliss, a 
sweeter joy and blessedness, than that which St. Paul 
describes in the words : " Eye hath not seen, ear 
hath not heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of 
man to conceive what God hath prepared for those 
that love Him " ? 

Perchance, there is many a soul who is sighing and 
wondering : Ah, shall my wish of reaching heaven ever 
be fulfilled ? Shall I ever be thought worthy to share 
one day those heavenly joys ? Christian soul ! I an 
swer : One day the Lord will come to thee, as the 
owner of the vineyard came to the fig-tree, seeking 
fruits upon thee, namely the fruits of good works. If 
He does not find them, He will be filled with wrath, 



The Barren Fig-tree. 25 

and will call out to Death : " Cut the tree down, and 
cast into the fire." But if He finds good fruits in thy 
soul, oh ! then be convinced that He will turn to thee 
full of love and say : " Come, ye blessed of my Father, 
possess you the kingdom prepared for you, from the 
foundation of the world. (Matt. xxv. 34.) 

I said just now that if we would attain the object 
for which God has created us, we must bear good 
fruit during our life. 

Let us prove this truth by the doctrine of Jesus 
Christ. 

" The kingdom of heaven," says our Divine Re- 
deemer, " is like unto a householder, who went out 
early in the morning, to hire laborers into his vine- 
yard. And having agreed with the laborers for a penny 
a day, he sent them into his vineyard. And going- 
out about the third hour, he saw others standing in 
the market-place idle. And he said to them : Go ye 
also into my vineyard, and I shall give you what shall 
be just. And they went their way. And again he 
went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did in a 
like manner. But about the eleventh hour he went 
out, and found others standing and said to them : 
Why stand ye here all the day idle ? They say to him : 
Because no man hath hired us. He saith to them : Go 
ye also into my vineyard. And when evening was 
come, the Lord of the vineyard saith to the steward : 
Call the laborers and pay them their hire." (Matt, xx.) 

Tell me, my brethren, are we not meant in these 
laborers to see ourselves, whom God has placed in 
His vineyard in this world, to do good in His ser- 
vice ; so that in the evening of our life He may 
reward us for what we have done ? Or do you think 
the owner of that vineyard would have rewarded 



26 The Barren Fig tree. 

those laborers, if they had done no work, had sat with 
folded hands and had given themselves up to idle- 
ness ? Or, if they had gone against the will of their 
lord, and worked evil in his vineyard, if they had 
rooted up the vines instead of the weeds, and perpe- 
trated every imaginable kind of mischief ? Do you 
think he would have rewarded them ? Even so, can 
you imagine that the Lord, our Creator, in whose 
service we ought to work and do good, can you 
imagine that He will reward us, in the evening of our 
life, if we shall have given way to sloth, and omitted 
to do the good He has commanded us to do ? We 
receive already in this world a reward for a good 
deed, and even so, God gives eternal rewards for good 
works only. "Everyman," says St. Paul, " shall re- 
ceive his own reward according to his labor." He 
will receive a good reward, if he has done good, a 
heavenly reward, if he has done good works for 
heaven. 

O Christian ! Be, therefore, industrious in doing 
good. The evening of thy life will come, when the 
Lord will come to thee, like the owner of the vine- 
yard, and look for fruit on the tree which He has 
planted in this world ; and woe be to thee if He finds 
no good fruits, no deeds on thee ; He will then call 
out to Death : " Cut dow r n this tree and cast it into the 
fire." 

A second proof of these truths our Divine Lord 
gives us in the parable of the five wise and five foolish 
virgins. When, in the middle of the night, a voice 
was heard crying : " The bride-groom cometh," the 
foolish ones had no oil in their lamps ; and while they 
went to buy some, the bride-groom led the wise vir- 
gins into the bridal chamber, which was then locked 

CD 



The Barren Fig-tree. 27 

against the foolish ones. That bride-groom is God ; 
those ten virgins are the children of man ; the oil, 
which the wise virgins had in their lamps, are the 
good works of the just ; the bridal chamber is heaven. 
Now tell me, my brethren, whom will God one day lead 
into the heavenly bridal chamber, when the night of 
life comes, and with it the Bride-groom and Judge ? 
Only those who have oil for their lamps ; that is, 
those who have gathered a store of good works. 

O Christian ! Persevere, then, in doing good. The 
night of death will come, in which the Bride-groom, 
thy Judge, will appear, and woe be to thee if He finds 
no oil in thy lamp of life. If He finds no good deeds 
in thee, He will close the door of the celestial chamber 
against thee, and call out to thee, as He did to the 
foolish virgins : "I know thee not.'" 

As another proof of our assertion, we will cite a 
third of our Divine Lord's parables : " A man going 
into a far country, called his servants, and delivered 
to them his goods. And to one he gave five talents, 
and to another two, and to another one, to every one 
according to his proper ability ; and he immediately 
took his departure. And he that had received the 
five talents, went his way and traded with the same, 
and gained other five. And in like manner, he that 
had received the two gained other two. But he that 
had received the one, going his way, digged into the 
earth, and hid his lord's money. But after a long 
time, the lord of those servants came, and reckoned 
with them, and he that had received the five talents, 
coming, brought other five talents, saying : Lord, thou 
didst deliver to me five talents, behold I have gained 
other five over and above. His lord said to him : 
Well done, good and faithful servant ; because thou 



28 The Barren Fig-tree. 

hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee 
over many things : enter thou into the joy of thy lord. 
And he also that had received the two talents came 
and said : Lord, thou deliveredst two talents to me, 
behold I have gained other two. His lord said to 
him : " Well done, thou good and faithful servant ; 
because thou hast been faithful over a few things, T 
will place thee over many things : enter thou into the 
joy of thy lord." (Matt. xxv. 14-23.) This lord is 
God, and all of us are His servants ; and the talents 
entrusted to us are the natural and supernatural gifts 
and graces, wherewith we are to do good, and obtain 
other graces and advantages for heaven. Now, my 
brethren, to which of his servants did the master, 
when he made his reckoning, say : '* Enter thou into 
the joy of thy Lord "? Did he say it to those who 
had done good work with their talents, or to him who 
had buried his talent and done nothing at all with it? 
In like manner will our Lord speak to us, if we have 
used well the talents entrusted to us. If we have 
failed to do this, He will, when He makes His reckon- 
ing with us, call out to His angels : " And the 
unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior 
darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of 
teeth." Therefore, I say, without good works, no 
salvation. 

No less clearly have the apostles expressed them- 
selves in all their teachings and writings, to the 
effect that without the fruit of good works we 
cannot obtain salvation. " I have placed ye in 
this world," says our Divine Lord, "that ye may 
bring forth fruit, and that your fruit may remain." 
Do these words not apply to every man ? Did not 
God place every man in the world, that he might bear 



The Barren Fig-tree. 29 

fruit, which would remain for life everlasting? There- 
fore, the Apostle exhorts us to do good, when he writes : 
" And in doing good let us not fail. For in due time 
we shall reap, not failing." (Gal. vi. 9.) And again : 
" For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus 
to good works." (Eph. ii. 10.) Yes, we are created for 
good works, we must therefore do good unceasingly. 
We ought to perform good works at every period of 
our life, in youth, in manhood, and in old age. This 
is proven again in the parable of the fig-tree. " Be- 
hold," said the lord of the vineyard to his gardener, 
"for three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree 
and find ncne. 

O Christian ! to thee also the Lord, who planted 
thee, comes at three different periods. He comes to 
thee, in thy youth, and seeks for the fruits of the young 
tree. He looks for the fruits of piety, of filial obedi- 
ence, for the fruits of purity of heart, and chastity ; 
and blessed indeed is that youth or maiden on whose 
tree of life the Lord finds such fruits. He will regis- 
ter them in the book of life, until that hour shall come, 
when He can say to them : " Come, ye blessed of my 
Father, possess ye the kingdom prepared for you from 
the foundation of the world/' He . comes to thee in 
thy manhood and looks for good fruits on the now 
strong and well-grown tree. He comes to you, O ye 
fathers and mothers, and looks for the fruits of your 
children's good education. He looks for the fruits of 
good example to those entrusted to your care ; for the 
fruits of a peaceful and harmonious life ; the fruits of 
conjugal love and fidelity ; and the fruits of true piety 
and fear of God in your houses. He looks for justice 
in your ways and dealings and for peaceable intercourse 
with your fellow creatures. And trulv blessed are vou 



30 The Barren Fig -tree. 

if the Lord finds such fruits on your trees of life. He 
will register them in the book of life, until the hour 
when He can say to you : " Come, ye blessed of my 
Father, possess ye the kingdom prepared for you from 
the foundation of the world." He comes to thee finally 
in thy old age, and looks for the fruits of that tree, half 
of whose branches are already dead, and whose juices 
are nearly dried up ; for the fruits of that tree, which 
will soon be cut down by death. He looks to see 
whether the old man still uses his little remaining 
strength to fill up the measure of his good deeds ; 
whether he takes pains to prepare himself for a happy 
death ; whether he sighs over the mistakes of his past 
life, and endeavors to make good what he has done 
amiss ; whether he repents of the sins he has com- 
mitted against God's commandments during seventy 
or eighty years ; and whether he prays again and 
again for the mercy of God, in the approaching awful 
judgment. And truly blessed is he of whom our Lord 
can say: "Not for three, but for seventy or eighty 
years, have I sought for fruit on this tree, and having 
found them in youth, still find them in old age/' The 
Lord will register them in the book of life, until the 
now fast approaching hour of death shall come, and 
He can say : " Come, ye blessed of my Father, pos- 
sess the kingdom prepared for you from the founda- 
tion of the world." O Christian ! Heaven is only for 
good works ; without them no salvation. I say more. 
Without good works not only no blessedness, but ever- 
lasting perdition. What says St. John of the tree 
which brought forth no good fruit ? '* it shall be cut 
down, and cast into the fire/' What said our Divine 
Lord, when He one day saw a barren fig-tree by the 
road- side? He cursed it. And wherefore will the 



The Barren Fig-tree. 31 

Judge one day say to the damned on His left-hand 
side, " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting- 
fire '' ? Because, as He says Himself, they did not 
feed Him when He was hungry, they gave Him no 
drink in His thirst ; did not clothe Him when He was 
naked ; and did not visit Him when He was sick or 
in prison. In other words, because they had prac- 
tised no good works. 

" Good works/' says St. Bonaventure, " are the door 
to the heavenly Jerusalem. " Therefore, I beg of you : 
Do good, that ye may enter through this door. 

Bring forth good fruit, ye children, ye youths and 
maidens ; do so already in your childhood, and youth, 
that the Lord, if He comes to you thus early to look for 
fruit, He may find it on j^our trees of life. Bring forth 
good fruit, O ye in the prime of life, for though in full 
strength, perchance the day may not be far off when 
the Lord shall command death to cut down your trees 
of life. Bring forth good works for heaven, O ye aged 
men and women, as many as ye still can, with your 
feeble strength, for the hour of evening is at hand, 
when the Lord says to His steward : " Call the labor- 
ers and pay them their due." 



CHAPTER IV. 

Man must bring forth good, and not evil fruit, if he would 
fulfil the end for which he was created. — Continued. 



" He came seeking fruit on it." — Luke xiii. 6. 



I say that lie who brings forth bad fruit, or in other 
words, he who sins, cannot obtain heaven, because — 

a) Through sin he loses the love of God, and incurs the 
tvrath of God, 

Now I ask : Can God love the sinner ? Yes, God 
loves the sinner even after he has sinned, in so far as 
He does not wish his precious soul to be lost. There- 
fore, He continues to give him His graces, even after 
he has sinned, and does very much to reclaim him. 
On the other hand, He does not love him, in so far as 
sin, which is in His eyes a horror, weighs down his 
soul and makes it loathsome in the eyes of God. 
Therefore, we may say God hates the sinner, because 
He hates sin, and the sinner has committed sin. 
Moreover, God hates the sinner, because by sinning he 
revolts against Him, and through his sin has refused God 
the service and obedience due to Him. Through his 
sin he has said: " Non serviam," "I will not serve 
thee." Therefore the Holy Ghost speaks through His 
prophet : " But to God the wicked and his wickedness 
are hateful alike." (Wisdom xiv. 9.) 



The Barren Fig tree. 33 

Now say, O sinner, dost thou think that God could 
receive thee among His blessed, when thou and thy 
impious ways are hateful to Him ? Surely not. Only 
those can attain salvation on whom rests God's appro- 
bation and His love. 

Therefore our Divine Lord also says : " If any one 
love me my Father will love him, and we will come to him 
and take up our abode with him." (Johnxiv. 23.) But the 
sinner is not he whom God loves, and God cannot love 
him or take up His abode with him, or abide with him 
in heaven. Sinner, look but on the fig-tree. The Lord 
was so angry with it, even for bringing forth no fruit, 
that He said, " Cut it down." How much more angry 
must He be with thee, when, not content with bringing 
forth no good fruit at all, thou givest offence by bring- 
ing forth bad fruit. Must He not be much more dis- 
pleased and call out : " Down with the tree and cast 
it into the fire " ? O, I beg of thee, leave off sinning, 
that thou mayest not forfeit God's love and thereby 
lose thy salvation. Leave off sinning and, during this 
holy season of Lent, begin to repent of thy sins, and 
bear the fruit of good works. Perhaps during this 
time the Lord will come and seek for fruit on the tree 
of thy life, and finding none, His terrible words may be 
fulfilled in thee : " Cut it down," for " the tree which 
bears no good, but only bad fruit, will be cut down and 
cast into the fire." 

Further the sinner cannot obtain heaven, because — 

b) He cannot, ivhile in a state of sin, gain any merits for 
heaven, and through sin destroys all past merits. God 
created us by His grace, and wishes us also to be saved 
by grace ; but though heaven is God's gracious gift, 
still He wishes us to deserve heaven by our co-opera- 
tion, by fulfilling the will of God and by good works. 



34 The Barren Fig-tree. 

In other words, heaven is a reward which God intends 
to give us for our merits. Christ Himself calls it a 
reward, when speaking to the just who, by their pure 
and holy lives, have deserved heaven : " Be glad, there- 
fore," He says, "and rejoice, for your reward is very 
great in heaven." (Matt. v. 12.) And again, in the par- 
able of the laborers in the vineyard, the lord of the 
vineyard says to his steward : "Call the laborers and 
pay them their hire." And St. Paul writes : " Every 
man shall receive his own reward according to his own 
labor." (Cor. iii. 8.) Now I ask thee : Canst thou, while 
in a state of mortal sin, bear good fruit for heaven, or 
obtain merits for which thou couldst receive heaven 
as a reward ? I say no ; for all the good done, while 
in a state of mortal sin, will not help thee to possess 
heaven. "As the branch," says our Divine Lord, " can- 
not bear fruit of itself, unless it abide in the vine, so 
neither can you unless you abide in me." (John xv. 4.) 
Thou art that branch ; Jesus Christ is the vine ; and 
sin is the knife which has cut thee off and separated 
thee from God. Accordingly thou canst not bear 
fruit for heaven, so long as thou art not in connection 
with the true vine. "So long as man," says a pious 
writer, "remains in the state of mortal sin, he maybe 
compared to those unhappy mothers who only give 
birth to dead children ; *' for such a man only bears 
dead fruit, which cannot live before God nor avail 
him for eternal life. " As the light of the moon," 
says St. Bernard, "depends only upon the sun, so 
the merit of our good works depends solely upon 
the state of grace of our soul." In the state of sin 
by which this state is destroyed, the obtaining of 
such merits for heaven is accordingly impossible. 
Add to this : hadst thou, while in the state of grace, 



The Barren Fig-tree, 35 

gained the highest merits for heaven by thy good 
works ; by yielding to one mortal sin all thy merits 
are lost. Through His prophet, the Holy Ghost says : 
" If the just man turn himself away from his justice, 
and do iniquity, all his justices which he hath done 
shall not be remembered." (Ezech. xviii. 24.) St. 
Cyprian tells us that "As a hail-storm to an orchard 
of ripe fruit, as a gale of wind to a fruit tree, as a pes- 
tilence among cattle, and as a furious hurricane to ships 
at sea, so is sin to man : total destruction of all good 
works." Sin is a worm which gnaws away all that is 
good ; a fire that burns it ; a rottenness that corrupts 
it ; and a sword that annihilates it. 

O awful curse of sin ! If a man were to fast rigidly, 
to lead an austere life, to pray incessantly, always be 
mortified, pure and chaste, and would so continue per- 
haps for twenty or thirty years ; if he then were to 
commit one mortal sin, he would lose all merit of his 
former virtues. Just as a merchant, who having 
amassed immense treasures, has happily escaped the 
dangers of the sea, and then suffers shipwreck, just as 
he approaches the harbor, and is in sight of his 
longed-for native country. How terrible is his loss ! 
But how much more terrible is the loss of the sin- 
ner, who through mortal sin loses the merit of all his 
former good works, and forfeits his eternal salvation ? 

Nero, the Roman Emperor, once lost an enormous 
sum of money at play. Agrippina, his mother, not 
daring seriously to reprove him for it, had the whole 
sum, upwards of a million, distributed on different ta- 
bles, and showed these to her son. When Nero was 
much surprised at the large sums, his mother said : 
" My son, all this money thou hast gambled away ! ' 
But thou, sinner, what hast thou gambled away ? 



36 The Barren Fig-tree. 

Thou hast lost all the treasures of thy good works at 
one fell swoop. Forfeited is all thou hast gained by 
thy crosses and sufferings, by poverty and persecution, 
prayer and alms-giving ; lost are all the rosaries thou 
hast said, the masses thou hast heard, the confessions 
and communions thou hast made. Lost is, — well 
mayest thou start horror-stricken, — lost is heaven and 
thy eternal salvation, which thou hadst deserved by 
thy former good life. Oh ! I conjure thee, by the 
happiness of thy immortal soul, leave off sinning from 
this hour. In this holy season of penance, repent of 
all thy sins, or thy salvation is lost forever ! 

O, believe me, my brethren, as the Lord comes to 
look, whether the tree, planted in his vineyard, bears 
good fruit, so also He seeks for the bad fruit ; and 
both good and bad He registers in the eternal book of 
life. "During three years," says the parable, "I 
come, seeking fruit on this tree." At three different 
periods the Lord comes to thee, O sinner, and sees the 
bad fruit borne by thy soul. He comes in thy youth, 
and alas ! how is the tree of thy life, already laden with 
evil deeds. There He finds the sins of disobedience 
and obstinacy, committed by boys and girls against 
their parents. There He finds perchance hundreds of 
evil deeds against holy purity and innocence, of which 
thou hast made thyself guilty by indecent words and 
songs, and voluntary impure thoughts and desires ; 
by actions of concupiscence and lust. There He finds 
the grievous crimes with which the shameless youth 
has dyed his soul by the seduction of innocent souls, 
and the shameless girl by her bold and licentious con- 
duct, and loose morals. There he finds many a youth 
a prodigal son, many a young woman a sinner like 
Magdalen. And what do you suppose the Lord 



The Barren Fig- tree. 37 

would say to a tree with such fruits of sin upon it ? 
Ask yourselves, and will not the answer be : 4t Cut it 
down and cast it into the fire"? For " every tree that 
bringeth not forth good fruit shall be cut down and 
cast into the fire." (Matt. vii. 15) 

For the second time, the Lord comes to thee, O 
Christian, in thy manhood, and alas ! what fruits does 
lie find there ? Perhaps He will still find on the full- 
grown tree the sinful fruits of youth ; for thou hast as 
yet done no penance for those earlier sins ; and per- 
haps increased them by sacrilegious confessions. Many 
fresh sins have been added to those of youth. Here, 
perhaps, the Lord finds injustice and fraud in business 
dealings, and imposture in trade ; there He finds, very 
likely, discontent among married people, and quarrels 
and disputes, oaths and curses. Elsew T here He will 
see possibly longstanding and bitter enmities between 
brothers, sisters and relations ; hatred and desire of 
revenge amongst friends and acquaintances. Again, 
perhaps, He finds parents bringing up their children in 
a way that points not to heaven, but to hell, and, — shall 
I say it ? — infidelity and adultery amongst the married. 
And what can the Lord say, finding such fruits as 
these on the tree of one's life ? Ask yourselves, and 
the answer will be : " Down with it and cast it into 
the fire ; ' for "every tree that bringeth not forth good 
fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire." 

And the Lord comes for the third time to thee, O 
Christian, in thy old age. Now is the tree half dead, 
and withered ; its leaves are sere and yellow, and fall 
to the ground with the slightest wind. The old man's 
blood is cold in his veins ; his strength is exhausted ; 
his hair is silvered by age, and he drags himself pain- 
fully from place to place bending on a stick. And 



38 The Barren Fig-tree. 

still there are sins in his heart, the sins committed 
during eighty or ninety years. Still stolen property 
in his possession, and still he is not dead to the lusts 
of the flesh, and still given to drink ; and ever yet im- 
pious and impenitent in the very face of death ; 
and even now he has no fear of hell, though so near it. 
Lord, what wilt thou say to such a tree, when thou 
comest, at the end of its life, and findest no good, but 
only bad fruits ? Woe be to such a tree ! threefold 
woe ! for " every tree that bringeth not forth good 
fruit, shall be cut down and cast into the fire." 



CHAPTER V. 

What good fruit must man bring forth in order to fulfil the 
end for which he was created ? 



" I find no fruit." — Luke xiii. 



Not only does the all- seeing eye of God look down 
from heaven each day and hour on every one of us, 
to see if the tree He planted bears good fruit ; but a 
day will come, when the lord of the vineyard will ap- 
pear in person before his fig-tree, and search minutely 
if he can find good fruit. That day is the day of our 
death, on which God will require of us the strictest 
account of all our doings. What an awful day that 
will be, when the Lord shall say to His servant, 
Death, " cut that tree down." How awful will it be, 
if we are not laden with good works, which alone may 
let us hope for a merciful judgment. What a terrible 
day will it be, if we see bad fruit on ourselves, which 
shall make us dread an awful verdict ! 

You know, dear brethren, from our previous medi- 
tation, that those bad fruits are our sins; the good 
fruits our good works. Now comes the question : 
What good works in particular ought we practise, and 
what special sins ought we shun, so as to attain salva- 
tion ? I answer by limiting myself to the two greatest 



40 The Barren Fig-tree. 

virtues, in which are contained all others, and say : 
The Lord must find in us the fruits of 1) a faithful, 
and 2) a loving heart. 

" The Lord of the vineyard came seeking fruit on 
the fig-tree." In like manner God acts respecting us. 
He looks for fruits on the trees planted in His vine- 
yard ; and in order to make us blessed forever, He re- 
quires, first of all : 

a) That we shall have preserved in our hearts the 
faith taught us by His Divine Son. "Are we not told, 
even by our own reason, that faith is necessary to 
salvation? Why, we ask, did the Son of God preach 
His gospel to us ? Surely, that we might accept 
the same. Would not our Saviour have taught His 
great truths in vain, to one who refused to accept the 
gospel? Would our dear Redeemer have preached 
in the synagogues of the land for such a worthless 
purpose, and would He have given His apostles the 
command to spread the gospel among all the nations 
of the earth, if it were open to man either to accept 
the gospel or not, as he liked? It is impossible to 
assume such an alternative. Jesus Christ made 
known to us the will of His heavenly Father, that we 
might be saved ; and therefore the first condition of 
our salvation must be, that we should believe in Him 
and His word. 

This our Lord says Himself in the clearest words : 
" He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved" 
(Mark xvi. 16), and St. Paul writes : " For he that 
cometh to God must believe that He is, and is a 
rewarder to them that seek Him." (Hebr. xi. 6.) 
" Faith," says St. Clement of Alexandria, " is as nec- 
essary to a Christian, as the air he breathes is to him 
who lives;' and St. Augustine observes: "Without 



The Barren Fig-tree. 41 

faith no one can be counted among the children of 
God ; because without faith no man can obtain the 
grace of justification in this world, or eternal salva- 
tion in the next. He who does not walk in faith here 
below, will not attain the beatific vision." As most 
of the Israelites, when they had gone out of Egypt, 
did not reach the promised land, because of their 
want of faith, so also, if Christians have no faith, 
they will never reach the promised land of heaven. 

Dear brethren, as without faith salvation is impossi- 
ble, let us hold firmly to our holy faith, and let us 
not be led by any temptation into unbelief. When I 
speak of faith, I mean, of course, only the faith of 
the holy Catholic Church, which is the only true faith. 
To convince you of this, let me ask you, Who has 
announced to us those truths which the Catholic 
Church teaches ? I say the Son of God, whom the 
angels heralded as such at His birth ; the Son of God, 
of whom the Heavenly Father said at His baptism 
and transfiguration : ' ; This is my beloved Son, in 
whom I am well pleased (Matt. iii. 19) ; the Son of 
God, who proved His divinity, when, at His mighty 
word, the blind saAV, the lame walked, the deaf heard, 
the dumb spoke, lepers became clean, and even the 
dead returned to life. The Son of God, I say, at whose 
death the sun became darkened, the earth quaked, the 
veil of the temple was rent in two : all bearing witness 
that our Lord had been crucified ; the Son of God, who 
rose from the grave, as the Lord over life and death, 
and ascended into heaven, whence He had come. 
Is, then, the gospel, preached to us by this same 
Divine Son, truth or untruth ? I ask further, Who 
announced to us those truths, which the Catholic 
Church teaches? I answer, the apostles of Jesus 



42 The Barren Fig-tree. 

Christ, who received them from His own lips ; the 
apostles, who witnessed His saintly life, and divine 
miracles ; the apostles, who, one and all, sacrificed 
their blood and life for the truth of the doctrines 
they had preached. And this doctrine, which they 
sealed with their blood, is it truth or untruth ? Again 
I put the question, Who has announced to us these 
truths, which we are to accept ? I answer, the holy 
Catholic Church, for whose head and His representa- 
tive on earth Christ prayed, that His faith might 
not fail or that He should not fail in error. The holy 
Catholic Church the Son of God built upon a rock, 
that she might stand immovable in His doctrine ; the 
holy Catholic Church to whom Christ promised His 
assistance in the words : " Lo, I am with you all days, 
even unto the end of the world." Is, then, the doctrine, 
taught by this Church, truth or untruth ? Oh ! I beg 
of you, I conjure you, hold fast the faith of Jesus 
Christ, the Son of God, and His apostles ; cling to 
the Catholic Church, for her " faith is the door to 
eternal life, and the foundation of our salvation." 
(Euseb. Emissen.) 

Alas ! when I contemplate these truths, I could cry 
out: How small, comparatively, will the number of 
those be who enter into life everlasting through this 
same door of the true Catholic faith ! But I will not talk 
of this now, I will not speak of the many who stand 
outside this saving ark of God ; but I must dwell on 
the unbelief which reigns outside, and alas ! that I 
should have to say it, also inside the true Church 
of Christ. Wherever we look, in the highest and 
the lowest classes, in towns and villages all over the 
world, we seethe most rampant atheism ! We live in 
a time when, in the highest circles of society, a man 



The Barren Fig-tree. 43 

is allowed to boast of liis unbelief, and say, with a 
sneer, that he has left the great truths of faith behind 
him in the nursery. We live in a time when this 
liberal atheism threatens not only to annoy, but 
makes great efforts to destroy altogether, if it were 
possible, the Church of God. We live in a time when 
the divinity of the Son of God is openly denied in 
books and pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, 
and the Incarnation of the Son of God is placed in 
the region of myth and fable. We live in a time 
when a host of vain scientists value their own wisdom 
higher than the teachings of the holy Scriptures and 
the Church of God, and who must, accordingly, fall 
into error and untruth. We live in a time when even 
the uneducated men, who have barely passed through 
the classes of a primary school, dare to stand up in as- 
semblies and public houses, quoting the hollow 
phrases which they had heard from the mouths of 
unbelievers. We pass through a time when many 
will hear nothing of the immortality of the soul nor 
of a judgment, with its reward or punishment, after 
death. And when, as a natural consequence, the aims 
and ends of men's lives are limited to earthly en- 
joyments, without a thought of obtaining salvation 
by the performance of good works. How great is the 
number of those who are practical unbelievers, and 
how vast must hell be to receive such an immense 
number of infidels ! Thank God, we do not belong 
to those who must expect to be damned, because of 
their unbelief ; for thus runs the irrevocable sentence 
of the Son of God : " He that doth not believe is al- 
ready judged " (John iii. 18), and 'He that believeth 
not shall be condemned " (Mark xvi. 16.) 

Now von see, after His own words, the Son of God 



44 The Barren Fig-tree. 

must, when He comes to seek fruits on us, first of all 
find a faithful and loving heart, if He is to bestow on 
us salvation. But alas ! with the greater part of man- 
kind, He must call out with the Lord of the vineyard : 
' Non invenio fructum. ' "I find no fruit." I find no 
faith, and, therefore, the fruits of faith are also want- 
ing. In vain He looks for true piety, for firm confi- 
dence in God, for ardent love of God. For the heart 
without faith does not think of God, it lives without God. 
The heart without faith does not pray to God; to such a 
one nature is everything and supplies all needs, and a 
blind fate orders everything that comes to pass. The 
heart without faith does not seek consolation in God 
when in trouble ; it is without trust in God, without 
hope of being saved by God ; because of not acknowledg- 
ing a Ruler of the world. The heart without faith has 
no love to God ; because it accepts Him neither as its 
Creator nor its Benefactor, and still less as its Saviour. 
The heart without faith will not be converted to 
God, because it believes neither in sin as an offence 
of God, nor in His infinite mercy. Now, if an unbe- 
liever is incapable of all these virtues and good works, 
must not the Lord, when He comes seeking fruit on 
such a tree, say with the master of the vineyard : "I 
find no fruit" ? And finding no fruit, will the Lord 
make such a faithless soul blessed ? Surely never. 
Hence the terrible words : " He that believeth not, is 
already judged," and " He that believeth not shall be 
condemned." 



CHAPTER VI. 

What good fruit must man bring forth if he will fulfil the 
end for which he was created ? — Continued. 



I find no fruit. " — Luke xiii. 



We have just heard that faith is necessary to sal- 
vation. But we are not to suppose that faith alone will 
save us. It must be combined with charitv, and in 
charity bear fruit. This charity, or love, God must 
find in us, when He comes to look for fruit ; and it is 
the most agreeable fruit we can bear to Him. Listen 
to the proofs of this truth. When a scribe once asked 
our Lord, which was the first and greatest command- 
ment, He answered : " Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole 
soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole 
strength. This is the first commandment. And 
the second is like to it : Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself." (Mark xiL 30. 31.) St. Paul 
says that faith without charity will avail us nothing : 
"If I should have faith so that I could remove 
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 
And if I should distribute all my goods to feed the 
poor, and if I should deliver my body to be burned, 
and have not charity, I am nothing." (I. Cor. xiii. 2, 3.) 



4G The Barren Fig-tree. 

That same Apostle places the virtue of charity even 
higher than faith, and over all other virtues, when 
lie writes : " And now there remain faith, hope, 
and charity, these three, but the greater of these is 
charity/' (I. Cor. xiii. 13.) Rightly, therefore, says St. 
Peter Canisius : '■ Great and beautiful is faith, but 
greater is charity ; great and beautiful is hope, but 
lovelier is charity." Therefore, I say, God must find 
charity in our hearts, when He comes seeking fruit, 
when He comes to try and to judge us, and to prove 
whether He shall give us heaven or not. 

Charity is two-fold : the love we bear to God, and 
the love we bear to our neighbor. We will speak 
first of — 

a) The love we bear to God. 

You have just heard the words of Jesus Christ, 
when He says : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with thy whole heart : this is the first and greatest 
commandment." 

But why, we ask, must we love God ? We are to 
love God, because He is the most bountiful and ami- 
able Good. God, this greatest Good, is so immeasurably 
holy that we, even the angels themselves, cannot con- 
ceive Him. God, this greatest Good, is so immeasur- 
ably good, that in comparison with Him, there is no- 
thing good. Therefore the Son of God Himself says : 
" None is good save one, that is God." (Lukexviii. 19.) 
Many a man is good, no doubt, and the angels and 
saints of heaven are most certainly good ; but God is 
good in such perfect measure, that Christ says, that in 
comparison with Him, the holiest man, nay, the holi- 
est angel, cannot be called good. Just for this reason 
we are to love this greatest Good with our highest 
love. Hence the word of Christ : " Thou shalt love 



The Barren Fig-tree. 47 

God with thy icliole heart, and with thy ivhole soul, 
and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength." 
No love in the world ought to separate us from, or 
surpass this love ; as St. Paul says : " Who then 
shall separate us from the love of Christ ? Shall trib- 
ulation ? or distress ? or famine ? or nakedness ? or dan- 
ger? or persecution ? or the sword?" (Rom. viii. 35.) 

We must love God, because He loved us first. Confess 
it, O Christian ; is it not true, that God has loved thee, 
unspeakably, and has, in His love, bestowed endless 
benefits upon thee ? Thou must say to thyself : When 
I had no being, God created me ; when I was created, 
He preserved me ; when I was poor, He supplied my 
wants ; when I was hungry and thirsty, He gave me 
food and drink ; when I was naked, He clothed me ; 
when I was ignorant, He instructed me ; when I fell into 
evil ways, He showed me the right path ; when I 
stood still, He kept me from falling ; when I went on, 
He guided me ; when I sinned, He forgave me ; when I 
was lost, He saved and redeemed me. i{ For God so 
loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may 
have life everlasting." (John iii. 16.) And as God has 
loved us with such a surpassing love, we will exclaim, 
with the disciple of love, St. John : " Nos ergo diliga- 
mus Deum, quoniam Deus prior dilexit nos!" "Let 
us, therefore, love God, because God first hath loved 
us." (I. John iv. 19.) 

But alas ! where is our love of God ? He who loves 
will bear any burden laid upon him by his loved one ; 
where is our patience, where our willingness, to bear 
whatever God sends us ? He who loves, does all he 
can to give his loved one pleasure ; where are the good 
works we do from love of God, and to please Him ? 



48 The Barren Fig-tree. 

He who loves avoids everything that could possibly 
offend his beloved one ; where is our anxiety to avoid 
all sin, whereby we offend God ? Or is it love for God, 
when we rebel against His commands, and do just the 
contrary of what he wishes us to do ? Is it love of God 
when we incense Him by our revolt against His com- 
mandments But does not the sinner say, in deeds, 
if not in words : O God ! I will not serve thee, I will 
not fulfil Thy law ? Does not the unmerciful man say : 
Lord, I know that Thou wished us to be merciful, but 
nevertheless I will not practise this virtue? Says 
not the unjust man, by his injustice : Lord, I know 
Thy command, I know that Thou hast said, '' Thou 
shalt not steal," and not cheat thy neighbor, but 
I mean to do the opposite of what Thou wishest ? 
Says not the profligate : Lord, I know Thou lovest 
chastity and purity and innocence of heart, but I shall 
love and practise the lusts of the flesh .? Says not the 
passionate man : Lord, I know Thy word, " Blessed are 
the meek/' but I shall not follow Thy precept ? Is 
this love to God, our Supreme Lord, oris it not rather 
revolt and rebellion against Him ? Our Divine 
Saviour says : " He that hath My commandments, and 
keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me." (John xiv. 21.) 
And hence it follows that the sinner, who rebels 
against God's commandments, does not love Him. But 
how will it be, when the Lord shall come, seeking for 
the fruits of love, on the tree He has planted ? Will 
He be satisfied with the fruits borne by the sinner ? 
Oh ! I fear the words of Holy Writ will be fulfilled 
in him : "He that loveth not, abideth in death." (I. 
John iii. 14.) " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God," 
thus runs the command of Jesus Christ. To this He 
adds another one : 



The Barren Fig-tree. 49 

b) " Thou sltalt love thy neighbor as thyself." 
How emphatically does God impress upon us the 
love of our neighbor ! " Thou shalt," He says, " thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." (Matt. xxii. 39.) 
He does not leave the love for our neighbor to our 
own will and pleasure, no ; He commands it in the 
strictest words : " Thou shalt love thy neighbor/'' 
And that we may accept this commandment in all 
its severity, He says on another occasion : " This 
is my commandment that ye love one another." 
(John xv. 12.) He goes still further to compel us 
to practise this virtue, and says to His apostles: 
" By this shall all men know that ye are my dis- 
ciples, if you have love for one another/' (John 
xiii. 35), or in other words, all those who wish to be 
my disciples, my Christians, shall know that if they 
have no love for their neighbor, I do not accept them 
as my disciples, and do not consider them worthy to 
bear the name of Christian. Finally, our Divine 
Saviour prays for this virtue for His apostles and all 
Christians, as if He wanted to show us that it ought to 
be the true property and special attribute and virtue 
of the Christian. He prays for it to His Divine Father 
in the words : ''Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, 
whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as 
we also are." — " And not for them only do I pray, 
but for them also who through their word shall be- 
lieve in Me. That they all may be one, as Thou Father 
in Me, and I in Thee : that they also may be one in us." 
(John xvii. 11-21.) Does this prayer of Jesus Christ 
not tell us, that before all other virtues, He desires 
from us the love for our neighbor ? The Son of God 
desires of us the virtue of humility, but He did not 
pray for this virtue for us ; He desires of us the vir- 



50 The Barren Fig-tree. 

tue of charity and benevolence, but He did not pray 
for this virtue for us ; He desires of us the virtue of 
chastity and purity of heart, but He did not pray for 
this virtue for us. But He did pray that we might 
possess the virtue of love of our neighbor, because it 
resembles the first and greatest virtue, the love of God, 
and because it is the most necessary fruit we must 
bear to attain eternal life. " The love of God and our 
neighbor," says St. Augustine, " are two necessary 
virtues of the Christian. You must," he continues, 
*' have two feet to walk with ; and to walk to heaven 
and into the presence of God, you also require two 
feet. And which are these ? The two feet of Christian 
love for God and for our neighbor ; if you lack one of 
these feet, you will not reach the goal of your wander- 
ings." 

But our Divine Saviour does not only command us 
to love our neighbor, but also to love our enemy. To 
love our enemies is an especial commandment of 
Jesus Christ, and this love is an especial fruit which 
must grow on the Christian. Formerly the law was 
" an eye for an eye," which means hatred for hatred, 
revenge for revenge ; but with the gospel of Jesus Christ 
begins the code of love also for our enemies. Christ 
tells us : " You have heard that it hath been said : 
Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy. 
But I say to you : Love your enemies, do good to them 
that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and 
calumniate you : that you may be the children of 
your Father who is heaven, who maketli His sun to 
rise upon the good and bad, and raineth upon the 
just and the unjust." (Matt. v. 43-45.) Accordingly, 
the true command of Jesus Christ is to have love 
for our enemies in our hearts, and to practise 



The Barren Fig-tree. 51 

it by our deeds, and this is preached by St. Paul, 
when he writes : " But if thy enemy be hungry, give 
him to eat ; if he thirst, give him to drink." (Rom. 
xii. 20.) Love of our neighbor, in thought and d@ed, 
is essentially the command of Jesus Christ, which we 
must obey, as St. Bernard tells us, when he writes : 
"If a man hates thee in his heart, love thou him with 
all thy heart ; if a man has injured thee by his mouth, 
(by gossip and slander) open thou thy mouth to say 
pious prayers for him ; if a man has injured thee by 
his evil deeds, bestow on him, in return, benefits and 
works of love." 

Oh ! what a beautiful, glorious command is this, of 
loving our enemies ! Can there be a more beautiful 
commandment than this ? Did it not originate in the 
innermost heart of God ? Did it not flow from the 
heart of Jesus on the cross? Oh, beautiful and 
glorious commandment ! Oh, thou blessed tree on 
which grows the most sweet and precious fruit, which 
is enjoyed in heaven ! He who succeeds in perfectly 
loving his enemies, can hardly rise higher in the path 
of virtue ! 

But where is this precious tree to be found, on 
which grows this blessed fruit ? Lord, if on the trees 
Thou hast planted into this world thou lookest for the 
fruit of love for our neighbor, then Thou wilt find but 
little fruit ; but if thou thinkest to find love for our 
enemy upon them, then Thou wilt have to say after a 
long search: ''I find no fruit." "Where is charity ? 
Where is the true love for our neighbor ? Is it found 
unclouded between husband and wife, w r ho are united 
by the closest and tenderest ties ? No. Is it always 
found among brothers and sisters, and relations united 
by the closest bonds of blood ? No. Is it found among 



52 The Barren Fig-tree. 

neighbors and acquaintances who live in the same 
parish ? No. Alas, for the bickerings between some 
husbands and wives ! Alas, for the quarrels among 
some brothers and sisters, and relations ! Alas, for the 
dissensions in congregations ! Is it not in vain that 
our Lord said the lovely words : " Peace be with you "'? 
Did not Christ pray also for us " that we might all be 
one " ? Did, then, Christ give the commandment in 
vain : " The commandment I give ye is that ye love one 
another " ? And do you think the Lord will be satis- 
fied, when He comes seeking for fruit on the trees He 
has planted, if He finds nothing but hatred, envy, 
jealousy, falsehood, deceit, treason, treachery, malice, 
pugnacity, fights and quarrels, slander and backbit- 
ing ? Will these fruits take us to heaven or to hell ? 
Charity is the first and greatest command of God, of 
which our Saviour says, " Keep it and ye shall live." 
Hatred is the first and greatest commandment of 
the devil. Practise it, says the fiend, and thou shalt 
live forever in hell. 

Where is love, I ask again, and especially the love 
for our enemies ? Lord, even they who aggravate one 
another's quarrels, and keep up their enmities for 
years, and refuse to be reconciled, even these are Thy 
children, whom Thou hast planted in this world ; but 
if Thou seekest upon them for the fruits of charity, 
oh, then, Thou mayest search whole congregations, 
whole provinces, whole kingdoms, yea, whole conti- 
nents, without finding ten souls who truly love their 
enemies according to Thy word, who do good to those 
who hate them, and who follow Thy example, in say- 
ing, under the troubles prepared for them by their 
enemies: " Father, forgive them." No, their prayer 
is rather, "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth." 



The Barren Fig-tree. 53 

Their hearts contain only hatred, instead of love ; their 
hands are ready for blows, bnt not for blessings ; 
their tongues understand only to curse their enemies, 
but not to pray for them. 

Woe be to us, woe be to us, if the Lord comes, and 
finds such fruits upon us ! 



CHAPTER VII. 

God deals according to His justice with man, if he brings 
forth evil instead of good fruit. But He exercises long- 
suffering towards him, yet this long- 
suffering of God has a limit. 



*' Lord, let it alone this year also. 11 — Luke xiii. 8. 



We are told, by our Divine Saviour, how the lord of 
the vineyard came to look for fruit on the fig-tree he 
had planted. The tree had been growing there for 
many years, and had at last reached the age when it 
ought to have borne fruit, and its possessor looked 
forward to this fruit with great expectation. He came 
the first year and found nothing ; and when he came 
the second year and still found no fruit, he took 
even the trouble to come again the third year. But 
when he again found only the barren tree, his anger 
and impatience were aroused and he called out to the 
gardener : " Cut it down ; wherefore cumbereth it the 
earth? ' ; But yet. although his impatience had risen to 
the highest pitch, still he allowed himself to be soft- 
ened by the prayers of the gardener, and left the tree 
standing, in the hope that it would bear fruit the fol- 
lowing year. 

Such a tree is the slothful and lukewarm Catholic 
who bears no good fruit. The lord is God, who in His 



The Barren Fig-tree. 55 

wrath ought to let justice prevail, but who, in His 
long-suffering kindness, still waits to give the tree a 
chance of bearing good fruit. 

How many times has God told us, by the prophets 
of the Old Testament, as also by His only- begotten 
Son, Jesus Christ, and His apostles, that He does not 
wish for the eternal destruction of man, not for the eter- 
nal damnation of the sinner, but for his conversion and 
salvation. " As I live, saith the Lord God, I desire not 
the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from 
his way and live." (Ezech. xxxiii. 11.) That this wish 
may be fulfilled in the sinner, God waits with such 
great, such indescribable forbearance for his improve- 
ment and conversion ; He waits before punishing him ; 
He waits in the hope that he may bring forth good 
fruit, and so deserve a reward instead of a punishment. 

Let us first take the proofs for this truth from the 
Holy Scriptures : St. Peter writes in his second letter : 
" The Lord dealeth patiently for your sake, not willing 
that any should perish, but that all should return to 
penance." (iii. 9.) And in St. Paul's epistle to the 
Romans we find: " God endures with mudh patience 
vessels of wrath fitted for destruction." (Rom. ix. 22.). 
These vessels of wrath are evidently sinners, who 
bringing forth bad instead of good fruits, have doomed 
themselves to destruction, and although they have 
been entered, or rather have entered themselves in the 
book of damnation by their impiety, God bears with 
them with endless patience, always hoping for their 
return and conversion, that He may be enabled to en- 
ter their names in the register of the blessed. If He 
acted according to His % justice, He would have to 
punish them after every sin, but He bears with them 
with great patience and lets His long-suffering and 



56 T he Barren Fig-tree. 

mercy prevail over His justice. St. Peter Damianus 
says : " God sees the sins of the sinner and is silent. 
He sees them and does not make them known. He 
sees them, and for a time neither condemns nor pun- 
ishes the sinner." And St. Bernard writes: "The 
great forbearance of God consists in waiting so long 
for man when he has sinned ; He waits for man for ten 
and twenty years, and even to the highest age." 

Oh, we mnst exclaim, how long-suffering is our dear 
Lord with us sinners ! In the Holy Scriptures it is 
said : " And God, seeing that the wickedness of men 
was great on the earth, and all the thought of their 
heart was bent upon evil at all times ; it repented Him 
that he had made man upon the earth. He said, I 
will destroy man, whom I have created, from the face 
of the earth." The destruction of man was then 
decided upon, but did God at once carry out His 
resolution, as the vicious world had deserved ? Oh, 
the forbearance of God ! He waited, hesitated to 
fulfil His threat, although man did not hesitate in 
vice. And how long did God give them for their 
conversion^ Not ten, nor twenty, but more than a 
hundred years. First He announced to them their 
destruction ; first He had them exhorted through 
many years to change their vicious habits, so as to en- 
able Him to change their threatened punishment. 
Noe himself, the just man, had to preach penance to 
them, to try and move them to be converted. But 
then, when all these threats and exhortations availed 
nothing, then surely God was avenged upon them ? 
Ah, no ! The forbearance of God had still no end. 
"Make for thyself an ark," said God to Noe, " that 
these blinded ones may see that my threats are in 
earnest, that they may see how thou shalt be saved, 



The Barren Fig-tree. 57 

because thou hast practised justice, and that they 
may perish because of their sins." Now surely the 
time of punishment was near. A few months and the 
ark would be finished, and the deluge, that terrible 
judgment of God, would commence. No, no ; the for- 
bearance of God was still not at an end ; for forty, nay, 
fifty years, Noe had to be building his ark, at the com- 
mand of the long-suffering God, to leave to those un- 
fortunate ones still a little time, in which to return 
from their evil ways. What is to be said of such for- 
bearance, for which no period of time is too long, so 
that it gives the hardened sinner a chance of conver- 
sion? Truly the forbearance of God does more 
than the lord of the vineyard : instead of waiting for 
three years for the tree to bear fruit, God waits for for- 
ty, fifty, eighty years, nay, during the whole life of the 
sinner, in the hope of his conversion, before calling 
out : " Cut it down and cast it into the fire." 

Allow me to adduce another example, to show you 
the indescribable forbearance of God with the sinner, 
namely, the impious town of Jerusalem. This city 
was, so to speak, the beloved city of our Lord, on 
which He showered down His benefits. It was 
there that the Lord had that temple built in which He 
wished to be worshipped ; there were placed the 
tables of the law which contained His sacred will ; 
there He sent His prophets at different times to 
preach repentance to the godless inhabitants ; there 
He sent His only-begotten Son, who proved His Di- 
vinity by word and deed, and again exhorted them to 
penance. But what did these impious and blinded 
people — what did they, although threatened by the 
most terrible of God's punishments if they should 
persevere in their iniquity ? They, who had before 



58 The Barren Fig-tree. 

murdered and stoned the prophets sent to them by 
God, laid their hands on His only-begotten Son, and 
nailed Him to the cross. Now, ought not the wrath 
of God against this city to have been all the greater 
and quicker, when His benefits towards it had been so 
immeasurable ? But why did not God punish this 
godless town when its inhabitants stoned and mur- 
dered His prophets ? Because He is so long-suffer- 
ing. Why did God not inflict the severest punishment 
upon this people, when they refused to accept His 
only-begotten Son after he had given so many proofs 
of His Divinity? Because He is so long-suffering. 
Why did not God take His revenge on this city, when 
its inhabitants condemned His beloved Son to death 
and nailed Him to the cross ? Because He is so long- 
suffering. How long did God, in His forbearance, defer 
the long-threatened punishment ? For forty years — 
forty years, I say, God waited for their conversion, be- 
fore the prophesy of Jesus was fulfilled : "For the 
days shall come upon thee, and thy enemies shall cast 
a trench about thee, and compass thee around, and 
straiten thee on every side, and beat thee flat to the 
ground, and thy children who are in thee : and they 
shall not leave in thee a stone upon a stone, because 
thou hast not kuown the time of thy visitation." 
(Luke xix. 44.) 

But why adduce examples which are so far away ? 
By ourselves, I say, we can plainly recognize this for- 
bearance of God. Many a one amongst us has lived 
for fifty, sixty, seventy or eighty years, and during 
this time our Lord came to us, not three times, but 
many, many times, and finding we bore no good fruit, 
exhorted us to repent and amend. He has exhorted 
us by His prophets, the priests, whenever they ex- 



The Barren Fig-tree. 59 

plained the word of God to us, and threatened us with 
eternal damnation if we persisted in our sins. Still 
more forcibly has He spoken to us during our holy 
missions, and threatened us with heavier punishments 
if we should relapse again into sin. Often and often 
has He spoken to us in the holy sacrament of penance 
and urged us to abjure our often-confessed vices. 
Sternly and severely has He reminded us, by the 
troubles, sorrows, and illnesses which He has sent 
upon us as punishments for breaking his commands, 
and more particularly still by deaths among our rela- 
tions, friends and contemporaries, and especially by 
the sudden death of so many to whom He accorded no 
more time to prepare for eternity. 

And have we mended our ways ? Have we com- 
pletely abjured sin, and more especially that vice 
which runs through our life like a long chain ? Has 
the Lord found continual good fruit on us, continual 
improvement ? Have we not returned to our former 
sins after every good resolution, after every confession, 
and even after the general confession made during the 
mission ? And has the Lord been avenged upon us 
after these repeated infidelities towards Him ? 

No, the Lord, patient and long-suffering, has waited. 
For twenty or thirty years He waited before punish- 
ing yonder profligate, who began his sins in youth, and 
continued them up to his old age ; for twenty or thirty 
years He waited, before punishing yonder thief, who, 
in spite of his confession during the mission, has not 
returned his stolen goods even up to the present day ; 
for twenty or thirty years he waited before punishing 
yonder drunkard, whose vice gets worse the older he 
gets ; for twenty or thirty years he waited before 
punishing yonder hostile individual, who cannot exist 



60 The Barren Fig-tree. 

without disputes, and lawsuits, and the enmity and 
persecution of his neighbor. Oh, what a great for- 
bearance does God show towards us sinners ! If this 
long-suffering God had treated us according to His jus- 
tice He might have said long ago, without doing us a 
wrong : " Cut down the tree, and cast it into the fire." 
Verily we find in ourselves a living example of the 
long-suffering and mercy of God, and with the prophet 
we must exclaim : "Misericordia Dei, quia non su- 
mus consurnpti." " The mercies of the Lord that we 
are not consumed." (Lam. iii. 22.) 



CHAPTER VIII- 

God deals according to His justice with man, if he brings forth 
evil instead of good fruit ,* but he exercises long-suffer- 
ing towards him. Yet this long-suffering of 
God has a limit. — Continued. 



Lord, let it alone this year also.'' — Luke xiii. 8. 



Our Divine Saviour, having once exhorted the obsti- 
nate and blinded Pharisees to believe and to mend 
their ways, and having vainly urged them to curb 
their rebellious spirit, He said to them the terrible 
words : " And you shall die in your sin." (John viii. 21.) 
Terrible words, indeed, "You shall die in your sin." 
I am much afraid that a like fate will befall that sinner 
who goes on sinning, presuming upon the mercy and for- 
bearance of God, without ever beginning to bear good 
fruit ; I am much afraid that to him also will be said, 
" You shall die in your sin." The Holy Scriptures 
warn the sinner in the plainest manner, that the for- 
bearance of God has certain limits, and one day comes 
to an end. Let us see what the Holy Ghost says by 
the prophets : " Add not sin upon sin : and say not, 
The mercy of the Lord is great, He will have mercy 
on my sins. For mercy and wrath quickly come from 
Him, and His wrath looketh upon sinners. Delay not 
to be converted to the Lord, and defer it not from day 



62 The Barren Fig-tree. 

to day. For His wrath shall come on a sudden, and 
in time of vengeance He will destroy thee." (Eccl. v. 5.) 
What do the words mean, " For His wrath shall come 
on a sudden"? Can they mean anything but that 
God's forbearance with the sinner has ceased, and 
turned to anger ? And what do the words signify, 
"In the time of vengeance He will destroy thee'? 
Do not they say to the sinner that the forbearance of 
God, which up to the present would still have saved 
him, can be turned into vengeance to destroy him 
utterly ? 

There are three different classes of sinners, who al- 
wavs console themselves with the forbearance of God, 
and continue their sinful life, and like the fig-tree, bear 
no good fruit. 

The first of these say, as we find it in the Holy 
Scriptures : "I have sinned and what harm hath be- 
fallen me? for the Most High is a patient re warder." 
(Eccl. v. 4.) sinner, if up to the present no evil has 
come upon thee, because of thy sins, may not the 
punishment of God overtake thee even to-day ? Art 
thou to believe that, because thou hast sinned un- 
punished up to the present, thou wilt alway remain 
unpunished ? A man had once made a lion so tame, 
that he allowed his master to place his head between 
his jaws. Many times had he done this, but when, one 
day, he repeated the dangerous trick before a lot of 
spectators, the lion fractured his skull, and the man 
died on the spot. Now see, O sinner, this man also 
could say, " I have often done this deed of daring, and no 
harm has befallen me,'' but did he not pay for his folly by 
his life ? Art thou to believe that thou wilt be allowed 
to continue unpunished, in much worse deeds of dar- 
ing, when thy poor soul is at stake ? Alas ! per- 



The Barren Fig-tree. 63 

chance the end might be the eternal death of thy soul 
in hell, if God's forbearance were suddenly to turn to 
anger, and He were to call out to Death : " Cut down 
that tree and cast it into the fire." St. Augustine 
says truly : " Let no man think himself safe and free, 
because God's wrath and punishments have not over- 
taken him, and let him not think he will escape the 
punishment of his sins, if God does not punish him 
at once ; but let him rather realize that God is re- 
serving His judgment, and that the wrath of God, 
however late, will suddenly and unexpectedly come 
upon him as the Scriptures tell us."" Oh, do not say : 
" I have sinned, and what harm has befallen me, for 
the Most High is a patient rewarder." For I tell you 
He is also a certain requiter, from whose avenging 
hand no sinner shall escape. 

Another man will say : " I have yet plenty of time 
to bear fruit for heaven ; I am still y oung and full of 
life, it will suffice if I turn to God in the evening of 
my life, and do good." But tell me, did the lord of 
the vineyard only come and seek fruit on the fig tree 
when it was already old and half dead ? Assuredly 
not, for he could not expect much fruit from such a 
withered tree ; but he came seeking fruit when the 
tree stood there in all its vigor. Youths and maidens ! 
you are also now in your full strength ; therefore the 
Lord comes to you, seeking good fruit. Will you put 
off your Lord till your old age, when perhaps you will 
no longer be able to bring good fruit ? How do you 
know that God will accord to you an old age ? Was 
the rich man in the gospel a worn-out old man, of 
whom we read : " Thou fool, this night thy soul shall 
be demanded of thee " ? And you, if you say, " I 
have still time to bear good fruit," may not God let 



64 The Barren Fig-tree. 

His forbearance cease towards thee even to-day, and 
say : " Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be de- 
manded of thee" ? Do you not remember that the 
three dead men whom Jesus recalled to life, had all 
died in the prime of their lives ? And again, are not 
more men called before the judgment-seat of God, 
during the best years of life, than in old age ? There- 
fore, remember the words of the Holy Scriptures : " Do 
not hesitate to be converted to the Lord, and put it not 
off from one day to another, for suddenly comes His 
wrath, and in the day of vengeance He will destroy 
thee." Suddenly the anger of God will also be in- 
flamed against thee, and He will call out : " Thou fool, 
this night thy soul shall be demanded of thee." 
Wouldst thou, then, still be able to bear fruit for 
heaven, and return from thy sinful ways ? 

A third sinner says : " We find plenty of examples 
in the Holy Scriptures that God's forbearance lasts 
till death, and therefore I also can count on His for- 
bearance, even if I sin for many years, and bear no 
good fruit to the end of my days ; in the hour of my 
death I can repent." It is true, God allowed the thief 
on the cross to go on sinning till he was condemned 
to death, and in the last hour of his life, God had 
mercy on this grievous sinner. But, look also to the 
left side of the cross, and ask yourself, did God like- 
wise accord mercy to this evil-doer in the last hour of 
his life ? Did not the dying Saviour withhold His 
grace from him, in the very moment when His most 
sacred blood was flowing from the cross for the sins 
of the world? "Take it well to heart," says St. 
Augustine, " one thief our Lord saved, so that we may 
never despair, but the other one He allowed to perish, 
so that no man should presume upon His mercy." 



The Barren Fig- tree. 65 

" God only saved one thief," says St. Bernard, " to 
show us how rare are such conversions at the last 
hour." And again, we are told by St. Augustine : 
" During the five thousand years that the world has 
existed, I have only found one man, who, having mis- 
used the forbearance of God for so long, was yet 
saved in the hour of his death, and this only example 
is the thief on the cross." How wicked is, therefore, 
this confidence in the forbearance of God, when thy 
immortal soul is at stake, and thou art to the last de- 
gree unworthy of this forbearance, from thy arro- 
gance and presumption! 

To keep you from falling into this mischievous 
over-confidence, I will bring another example before 
you, to prove that this forbearance of God with the 
hardened sinner is most uncertain in its duration. 
The king Manasses lived for fifty-five years in idola- 
try, blasphemed God incessantly, practised oppres- 
sion, robbery, and murder, and was by these vices a 
great source of scandal to his people. At last God 
knocked at the door of his heart ; Manasses was con- 
verted and did penance. Here we have an instance 
of one to whom was given the grace of conversion 
after a long life of vice. But on the other hand let 
us listen how it fared with his son Ammon, which 
will show what chance thou wilt have of finding 
mercy after a sinful life. Ammon used the language 
of all impenitent sinners, and said to himself: "My 
father committed many crimes in his youth and only 
did penance in his old age ; so during my youthful 
days I will gratify every wish of my heart, and when 
I have satisfied all my appetites, I will be converted to 
the Lord and do penance. — And he did evil in the 
sight of the Lord, as his father Manasses had done." 



66 The Barren Fig-tree. 

(II. Paralip. xxxiii.) Perhaps lie also thought that 
God would have the same mercy and forbearance 
with him that He had with his father Manasses. 
But what a delusion, what a frightful delusion! 
Manasses had the grace to repent and mend his ways 
after fifty-five years of vice. But Anion ? Did God 
let him sin as long, when really he was more excus- 
able, with his father's seductive example before him ? 
No. Amon was only allowed to sin for iwo years, and 
then God let him die a sudden death. Now, if you 
make the conversion of Manasses the foundation of 
your hopes, will you not also take warning at the fate 
of his hapless son Amon, and by his destruction be 
moved to repentance ? He who sins, presuming 
upon the mercy of God, he does not deserve God's 
mercy ; and he who, like Pharao, continues in his im- 
penitence, will most surely perish in the depths of 
hell, as Pharao perished in the depths of the Red Sea. 
Therefore, O Christian, I conjure thee, by the salva- 
tion of thy immortal soul, remain no longer a barren 
tree, for whose fruits thy Lord, God in heaven, has 
waited so long in vain ! Up till now He has borne 
with thee patiently ; till now His forbearance has not 
turned to wrath and vengeance against thee ; till now 
He has not called out to Death : " Cut the tree down, 
and cast it into the fire. To-day, perchance, He 
speaks to thy heart for the last time, and asks of thee 
the true fruits of penitence. " To-day, if ye hear His 
voice, harden not your hearts." Soon, it may be after 
this holy time of penance, He may cry out, full of 
wrath against the barren tree: "Cut it down and 
cast it into the fire." 



CHAPTER IX. 

Who are the special intercessors for the sinner, when the for- 
bearance of God comes to an end ? and what special means 
does God employ in order to save the sinner ? 



Lord, let it alone this year also, until I die: about it, and dung it.' 1 — Luke xUL 8. 



For three successive years the lord of the vineyard 
came, seeking fruit on the fig-tree, and finding none? 
heat last called in wrath to the gardener: "Cut it 
down." Certainly the tree was to be cut down to no 
other purpose but to be cast into the fire, for it was 
fit for nothing else. The husbandman looked sadly 
at the tree ; it had cost him so much labor, he had 
bestowed so much care, so many hours of his time 
upon it. Externally the tree was strong and flourish- 
ing. What a pity, he said to himself, for such a fine 
tree. " Lord," he cried, therefore, full of mercy : " Let 
it alone this year also, till 1 dig about it, and dung 
it/' and perhaps it may yet bear fruit. 

We have seen in our previous meditations that by 
this barren tree is meant that man who bears no good 
fruit for heaven, and therefore must finally be con- 
demned by God to eternal damnation. Like the tree, 
that unhappy man also has his intercessors. As soon 
as God, after much forbearance, has resolved to punish 
him, in His just wrath, they intercede for him, and 



68 The Barren Fig-tree. 

generally not in vain, for mercy and a further respite. 
And like the lord of the vineyard, who allowed 
special means to be employed in the case of the bar- 
ren tree, to make it fruitful, so God also allows extra- 
ordinary means to be employed with the sinner, that 
he may bring forth the fruits of penance and good 
works. Let us ask — Who are the intercessors between 
God and man ? 

Every sinner deserves God's eternal punishment 
after each mortal sin. The justice and holiness of 
God demand this, which have been outraged by the 
sinner through his mortal sin. 

This truth is self-evident by the fall of the angels. 
No sooner had Lucifer and his followers rebelled 
against the Most High and broken their allegiance 
with Him, than at that very moment they were pre- 
cipitated into hell. 

This truth is proved to us by the punishment 
which instantaneously followed the sin of our first 
parents. Without delay God appeared in paradise, 
and announced their punishment to His disobedient 
creatures ; unhesitatingly He expelled them from 
their state of bliss, and left them to the misery of an 
unhappy life, placing an angel with a fiery sword at 
the entrance of paradise, to prevent their returning 
to their former happy state. Does not every sinner, 
after his first mortal sin, instantly deserve the venge- 
ance and punishment of God, just as much as the re- 
bellious angels, and our first parents in paradise ? 
Ought not the outraged justice of God make Him call 
out at once to the avenging angel : " Cut the tree 
down, and cast it into the fire " ? 

But, no sooner does God threaten the sinner with 
punishment, no sooner is the arm of justice raised to 



The Barren Fig-tree. 69 

cast him into hell, than up rise all those intercessors, 
for the unhappy man, full of pity, that his lovely 
precious soul should be lost forever ; up rise those 
powerful intercessors which God, in His mercy, has 
placed by the side of every man, and beg for him like 
the gardener begged for the fig-tree : " Lord, let him 
alone this year also ; he may happily bring forth 
fruit ! ' And such mediators, between the justice and 
the mercy of God, every man possesses, thanks be to 
God, several. Firstly, 

a) His guardian-angel. The Holy Scripture says : 
" Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister 
to them, who shall receive the inheritance of salva- 
tion?" (Hebr. i. 14.) The guardian-angels are to man 
what the husbandman is to the fig-tree ; they take care 
of both soul and body. They are anxious that man 
should thrive in doing good ; that he should bear 
fruit for life everlasting ; that he should avoid all 
evil that could rob him of heaven. They are especi- 
ally anxious for him, when he has long forfeited 
heaven, by a life of sin, and rejoice when he turns 
from his evil ways and does penance, as our dear 
Lord Himself tells us : " There shall be joy among 
the angels of God, upon one sinner doing penance," 
(Luke xv. 10), evidently, because by doing penance 
he saves his soul. Therefore, as soon as they see the 
sinner threatened with the punishment of God, they 
hasten to the throne of the Most High, and full of 
anxiety for the soul committed to their care, they beg 
for mercy, as St. Augustine tells us, (Soliloq. c. 7), in 
the words : • ' Lord, let the tree alone this year also> 
till I dig about it and dung it, happily it may yet bear 
fruit." I will speak to him and exhort him to penance, 
more than ever, and perchance he may yet be saved. 



70 The Barren Fig-tree. 

O, thou unhappy sinner, who hast up till now 
brought forth only bad fruits, perchance thou owest 
it to thy good angel-guardian, that thou still standest, 
a barren tree, in the vineyard of our Lord ; that God 
has still extended His forbearance, with which He 
has borne thy sinful life, and that He has not long 
since called out to His avenging angel : " Cut the tree 
down." Oh, I beg of thee, wait not longer with thy 
conversion, so that thy guardian-angel, whose inter- 
cession has till now saved thee through the mercy of 
God, may not have to exclaim in justice : " We would 
have cured Babylon but she is not healed." (Jer. li. 
9.) " Just God, now mayest thou have the tree cut 
down." 

The second mediator, who often obtains a respite 
for the sinner by her intercession, is — 

b) The Blessed Virgin Mary. 

" I am the mother of fair love/' so speaks Mary in 
the words of the prophet. (Eccles. xxiv. 24) "I am 
the mother of fair love." And truly that love is ex- 
ceeding fair, when the Mother of our Lord loves even 
the sinner, and is a constant intercessor at His throne. 
As she, at Canaan, went up to her Divine Son, repre- 
senting to Him the temporal need of those who were 
in trouble, that He might help them, so she stands 
now at the throne of her Divine Son, interceding in 
the spiritual need of the sinner, whenever she sees the 
sword of vengeance in His hand, and begs of Him : 
" O Divine Son ! I carried Thee beneath my heart 
also for that sinner whom, in Thy justice, Thou now 
wishest to destroy. For him also I gave Thee birth, 
and suckled Thee at my breast ; for him also I gave 
Thee up as a sacrifice ; for him also I felt the pangs 
of a seven-edged dagger in my mother's heart ; for him 



The Barren Fig-tree. 71 

also I suffered with Thee Thy unspeakable sufferings 
on Thy way to Calvary. Have mercy, then, for the 
sake of Thy mother, who has loved Thee so inexpress- 
ibly ; have mercy yet for one year, only for a short 
time ; perhaps he will return from his sinful ways and 
bear fruit." Will such a prayer of Mary's, I ask, be 
heard by her Divine Son ? Without doubt ; for is she 
not His Mother ? His Mother, to whom the Son can 
refuse nothing, and least of all the salvation of an im- 
mortal soul. St. Chrysostom says to Mary : " From all 
eternity, Ma.ry, wast thou chosen to be the Mother of God, 
in order that, by thy goodness and pity, thou mightest save 
those ivho, according to God's justice, could not be saved." 

O miserable sinner ! Thou who hitherto hast 
brought forth naught but bad fruit, perhaps it is for 
Mary's sake that thou, a worthless tree, has been left 
so long in the Lord's vineyard ; that the long-suffering of 
God has still been extended, and the hand of the angel 
of wrath still withheld. Delay no longer, I implore of 
you, do not put off your conversion and your amendment. 
Mary has hitherto preserved you by her appeals to the 
mercy of God ; do not force her to remember the justice 
of her Divine Son, and to say to Him, in the words of 
the Lord of the vineyard : " Noiv may est thou cut cloivn 
the tree.' . 

The third and most excellent mediator, who often 
obtains for the sinner a delay in the punishment of 
Heaven by His all-powerful intercession, is — 

The Son of God Himself. "There is one Mediator," 
says St. Paul, " There is one Mediator between God and 
man, Jesus Christ " (I. Tim. ii. 5), and St. John says : " If 
any one has sinned we have an advocate with the Father, 
Jesus Christ the righteous." (I. John ii. 1.) It was love 
for sin-laden men which drew down Jesus, the Son of 



72 The Barren Fig tree. 

God, from heaven to earth ; love, which made Him bear 
cruel agony for us sinners ; love, which fastened Him 
to the Cross ; love, which from the Cross caused Him 
to pray for the greatest sinners which the world had 
ever known ; His murderers, crying out for their par- 
don in the words : "Father, forgive them ! '* This 
love still lives on in His sacred heart, and when He 
sees the righteous anger of Almighty God ready to root 
out the barren tree, to crush the godless soul, then ' 
does He stand forth as Mediator before His Father to 
plead for the sinner. " Behold, my Father," He 
cries, " behold the Cross on which I suffered for this 
poor sinner ; behold my wounds which bled for him ; 
behold the precious Blood which flowed therefrom for 
him ; remember the agony suffered for him ; remember 
the anguish of death borne for him ! Accept, O my 
Father, accept, I beseech Thee, all the agony of Thy 
Son, from the garden of Gethsamane until the moment 
when He gave up His soul into Thy fatherly hands ; 
all that He suffered as a ransom for the sins of men, 
receive it all as a peace-offering for this poor sinner 
and have mercy on him yet for a time. ' One year 
more and may he he ivill bring forth fruit, r " 

O unhappy sinner ! Thou who hitherto hasfc brought 
forth naught but bad fruit, to Thy Saviour, to Jesus, 
dost thou owe it, that thou art still permitted to re- 
main a useless tree in the Lord's vineyard ; that God, 
who has borne so long with thy sinful life, still con- 
sents to exercise His long-suffering ; only for Jesus' sake 
is it that the Avenging Angel has still been withheld 
from carrying out the long-decreed sentence : " Cut 
down the tree and cast it into the fire ! " 

How great is the goodness and love of God towards 
us sinners, that He has given us such prevailing inter- 



The Barren Fig-tret. 73 

cessors that they have the power to stay the justice of 
Almighty God when He is about to punish, and to turn 
it into mercy. The tree which bore no fruit would, at 
the Lord's commands, instantly have been cast into 
the fire, had not the husbandman, entreated that it 
might be spared ; even so might we all, perhaps, after 
so many and repeated sins, have already been called 
away from this world, and condemned to everlasting 
punishment, had not God Himself given us such pow- 
erful intercessors in our guardian angels, in Mary the 
Mother of His Son, and in His beloved Son Himself. 



CHAPTER X. 

Who are the special intercessors for the sinner, when the 
forbearance of God comes to an end ? What 
special means does God employ in order 
to save the sinner ? — Continued. 



" Lord, let it alone this year also, till I dig about it and dung It."— St. Luke viii. 8. 



When the lord of the vineyard, wroth at finding no 
fruit on the fig-tree, commanded that it should be cut 
down, the husbandman prayed that it might be spared 
for yet another year, promising, in order to move the 
lord to mercy, that during that time he would use ev- 
ery effort in his power to make the tree bring forth 
fruit : " 7" will make a trench around it and dung //,'" 
he said ; " may be it ivill then bring forth fruit." What 
does the husbandman mean by these words ? It 
means that he will use special means to make the tree 
bring forth fruit ! 

Thus does God deal with the sinner when he is al- 
ready ripe for condemnation, yea, for hell. I am not 
speaking of the redoubled efforts made by his guardian 
angel to bring the sinner to repentance when he is on 
the point of being rejected by God, nor of the special 
graces obtained by Mary, when, for a time, she stays, 
by her prayers the just anger of Heaven ; I do not al- 
lude to the joint supplications of the angels and saints 



The Barren Fig-tree. 75 

imploring mercy before the throne of God, in order 
that their joy at the conversion of a sinner may not be 
taken from them ; I am only speaking of the special 
graces which God Himself pours forth on a hardened 
sinner, that he may still have a chance of salvation. 

Let me imagine a sinner who, until now, has lived on 
in his iniquity, never doing any real penance, nor bring- 
ing forth good fruit. I ask such a one, has not God 
often and in manifold ways spoken to thine inmost con- 
science and shown thee the number and the hideousness 
of thine offences ? Has He not, perhaps by the death 
of a relation, of a dear friend, or of some contem- 
porary, warned thee that death would soon knock 
also at thy door, and root out the barren tree ? Has 
He not often reminded thee of the awful judgment 
of eternity, which none can stand without previous 
repentance and amendment ? Has He never let thee 
glance with the eyes of faith into that abyss of hell 
where everlasting torments await the sinner? Has 
not the voice of the priest ever touched thy hardened 
heart ? Have the remonstrances of thy confessor 
never drawn from thee a sigh at the miserable state 
of thy poor soul ? Hast thou not, under these in- 
fluences of special grace, again and again cried out to 
thyself, as the prodigal son : " It is time, O my 
soul, that thou shouldst arise and go unto thy 
Father, and say to Him : ' Father, I have sinned 
before Heaven and before thee, and I am no more worthy 
to be called thy son " ? 

Thus, O sinner, has the Lord from time to time 
tried to work upon thy stubborn heart, and to lead 
thee into the path of true repentance ; He has dug a 
trencli around thee, a barren tree, in order that thou 
mightest bear fruit. Woe unto thee, if thou hast will- 



76 The Barren Fig-tree. 

fully turned away from His repeated and earnest calls 
and hardened thy heart yet more against His voice ; 
woe unto thee if thou dost still remain obdurate, if 
thou bringest forth no good fruit ! It may be that 
but a short reprieve is now granted thee, and if thou 
now dost not bring forth good fruit, oh, then trem- 
ble, lest the time should be come when the husband- 
man shall say to the lord of the vineyard : " Now 
may est thou nut down the tree and cast it into the fire." 

Once more, is it not true that the all-merciful God 
has, as it were, from time to time, endeavored to take 
thine unhappy soul by storm ? Remember the many 
holy missions of bygone days. Because thou hadst 
sank so low that the Word of God which thou heardst 
on Sundays no longer touched thee, because the voice 
of thy accustomed confessor no longer convinced thee, 
therefore did the Lord send special messengers from 
afar, that not at long inter vals,but for days successively, 
they might knock at the door of thy hardened heart 
and try to soften it. The enthusiasm excited in the 
souls of hundreds and thousands around thee ; their 
deep sighs, their burning tears of repentance moved 
thee also ; tears flowed from thine eyes ; sighs shook 
thy breast, and thou too didst obey the impulse of di- 
vine grace, hastening to the holy tribunal to confess all 
thy sins, all thy iniquities ; thou too didst participate in 
the unspeakable gift of God, —Holy Communion — (it 
may have been thine only good Communion in many a 
long year). Thou too didst abjure thy former evil 
life ; thou too didst hasten to thine enemy with whom 
for years thou hadst lived in bitter enmity, offering 
him the hand of reconciliation. Thou too didst make 
restitution of the ill-gotten wealth which thou hadst 
unlawfully appropriated to thyself, either in business 



The Barren Fig-tree. 11 

or by unjust dealing in lawsuits or otherwise ; thou too 
didst give up the habits of drunkenness and immorality 
to which thou hadst been addicted from thy youth 
upwards ; thou too didst lift up thy eyes unto Heaven, 
making a sacred vow unto the Lord that henceforth 
thou wouldst " Sin no more. 1 ' 

Behold what God has done for thee ! Like the 
husbandman, He dusf a trench round the unfruitful 
tree, and— pass me the expression— he dunged it, giv- 
ing it thus fresh nourishment, new vitality, inasmuch 
as He poured in the fulness of His grace, and thi* grace 
penetrated into the very roots of the heart. But has 
the tree since then brought forth good fruit ? A year, 
no! only a few months had gone by! the Lord came 
seeking fruit and, alas ! He — found — none ; He found 
the old tree covered only with worthless leaves ; He 
found the same bad life, the very sins ; the same bitter 
enmities. He found fresh unrighteousness, the same 
habits of drunkenness and licentiousness, the same 
careless, undisciplined life. Remember, therefore, O 
sinner, with what overflowing mercy God has inun- 
dated thy sinful soul ! Did He not try to w 7 in thy 
heart, to save thy soul even as by violence ? Woe 
unto thee, that from that very moment thou didst not 
once and forever forsake thy sinful w^ays ! May be 
thou hast now but a short reprieve. If now thou dost 
not bring forth fruits of penance, then, alas! the hour 
may come when the husbandman wall say : " Now 
mayst thou cut down the tree," and cast it into the fire. 

Truly all who, after such abundant graces from God, 
so many special helps, yet bring forth no fruits of pen- 
ance, no good works, to you must be applied the words 
of our Divine Saviour, once spoken by Him to the 
Scribes and Pharisees : " Ye fill up the measure of 



78 The Barren Fig-tree. 

your fathers ; how shall ye escape the judgment 
of hell ?'' (Matt, xxiii, 32, 33.) Alas ! my Christian 
brother, is not the measure of thy sins well-nigh 
filled to the brim ? The long-suffering and mercy 
of God are well-nigh exhausted, and soon — who knows 
how soon ? — the angel of Death, to whom God has 
given charge to cut down the unfruitful tree, will knock 
at thy door. Begin, therefore, to bring forth fruits 
of repentance, so that for thee the words of St. John 
the Baptist may not be fulfilled : 

" The tree which bringeth not forth good fruit shall be 
hewn down and cast into tliefire" 



CHAPTER XL 

The dreadful fate of the sinner if he does not repent and bring 

forth good fruit. 



Then after that tliou shalt cut down the tree. 1 ' — Luke xiii. 9. 



Great, inarvelloush r great, was the patience and the 
long-suffering of the lord of the vineyard. With his 
own hand he had planted the fig- tree and placed it in 
a rich soil ; he had appointed a husbandman to 
watch over it and tend it carefully, so that it might 
thrive and become a strong and healthy tree Thrice 
had he come to visit it, seeking fruit on it, but in vain. 
And at last, when the tree was no longer worth the 
ground on which it stood, he had given orders that lit 
should be cut down, but had acceded to the petition 
of the husbandman for one more respite, during which 
it might still bring forth fruit, and during this respite 
he had caused it to be dug round with special care, 
and even dunged. And after all this care did the tree 
bring forth fruit ? No. The lord came for the last 
time and finding no fruit, he was wroth and com- 
manded the tree to be cut down. O unhappy tree, I 
might well exclaim, how miserable is thy end ! Long 
mightest thou still have adorned the vineyard of the 
lord with thy flowers and thy fruit : but now the axe 



80 The Barren Fig-tree. 

will be laid to thy roots, thy branches will be hewn 
off, thine end is the fire. 

Behold, the image of the obstinate sinner ! Great, 
marvellously great, is t\ie mercy and long-suffering of 
God towards him. He has planted him in the fruit- 
ful soil of his Holy Church and placed him in the 
charge of the priests, His husbandmen. And when 
he would not bring forth good fruit, using special 
means for his amendment, He defers even the final 
summons to judgment and his final condemnation, at 
the intercession of his guardian-angel, of the Blessed 
Virgin, and that of His own Divine Son, thus tarrying 
to see if, haply, the sinner would not, after such par- 
ticular graces, at length turn and bring forth fruits of 
penitence and good works. But no ! No amendment, 
no conversion ! Therefore, for the second and last 
time, does the Lord give the command to cut down the 
tree and cast it into the fire. Oh, miserable sinner ! 
how wretched is thine end ! Hadst thou but brought 
forth good fruit, thy death would have been a happy 
one, and thou wouldst have enjoyed the reward of thy 
works forever in the kingdom of heaven ! But after 
a life of sin and iniquity, after a life barren of good 
fruit, there remaineth nothing for thee but — 1) an un- 
happy death ; 2) an awful doom ; 3) an eternity of 
torment. 

In Holy Scripture we are told that when Esau had 
sold his birth-right to his brother Jacob he went away 
and " made ligltt " of what he had done ; but when he 
saw that Jacob had obtained his father's blessing " he 
cried ivith a, great and bitter cry.'' T3iis is a faithful 
picture of the sinner, both in his life and in his death. 
When a sinner has committed a sin he goes away and 
makes light of what he has done. When the unjust 



The Barren Fig-tree. 81 

and dishonest man has possessed himself of that which 
belongs to others, he makes light of what he has done. 
When the profligate has perpetrated his deed of dark- 
ness, when the shameless youth and the unchaste 
maiden have stripped from their souls the holy robe 
of innocence, they go away and make light of what they 
have done. When the perjurer, by false swearing, has 
obtained his unrighteous end, he glories in his success, 
he goes away and makes light of what he has done. 
When the oppressor recklessly harms his neighbor, 
when he has worked vengeance upon his enemy and 
brought him to ruin, he triumphs in his gratified 
revenge and makes light of what he has done. When 
the lukewarm and impenitent sinner, in order to save 
appearances, out of the multitude of his trangressions 
once in the year confesses this or that little sin, con- 
cealing his grievous crimes and mortal sins, thus 
sacrilegiously obtaining the absolution of the priest, 
he too goes away and makes light of what he has done. 
So the sinner lives on in his life of sin ; thirty, perhaps 
forty years, he does not feel the heavy burden upon 
his soul ; his unabsolved sins and trespasses do not 
weigh upon his conscience ; he has no thought for the 
fearful reckoning after death in eternity, for he makes 
light of what he has done. Then, suddenly the Lord 
appears, seeking fruit on the tree that He planted, and 
in His wrath He exclaims : " Cut down the tree : ivhy 
should it still cumber the ground ? " 

And death knocks at the sinner's door in the shape 
of a dangerous illness ; he lies stricken down on his bed 
of sickness ; terror and anguish seize upon him ; he 
feels that his last hour is drawing nigh, that his end 
is come. Oh, that it might go well with him at the last ! 
But alas ! he has sinned, he has done amiss, and he 



82 The Barren Fig-tree. 

has made light of what he has done. And now that by 
his sins he has lost the eternal blessing of his Father, 
he cries out, like Esau, with a great cry, for sin, his own 
sins, weigh like a fearful weight upon his conscience. 
Now all the wickedness of his life crowd into his tor- 
tured brain, and his crimes seem inscribed on the 
walls of his dying chamber ; the manifold transgres- 
sions of his childhood and of his youth oppress his 
soul and drive him to despair. Now when his bodily 
eyes are about to close, his mental vision becomes more 
clear and he beholds his sins in their true enormity. 
Now when his heart is about to break in death it is 
still tortured by anguish and terror. Now when he 
can no longer commit acts of iniquity, his conscience 
reveals to him all the hidden malice of his own heart. 
Now that his tongue can no longer speak, a voice 
says to him : " Sinner ! the Lord is at hand, demand- 
ing of thee the fruits which thou shouldst have 
brought forth in thy life ! " 

Oh, fearful words for the godless sinner — " the Lord 
is at hand! ' and what answer shall his soul make to 
these awful words ? " The Lord is at hand, whom I 
have served so badly during my life, whose command- 
ments I have so often broken, whom I have again and 
again refused to obey ; the Lord is at hand, whom I 
have so often offended during my sinful life, by griev- 
ous crimes and mortal sins ; the Lord is at hand, He 
who gave me so many graces, which I have wasted 
and not used for my own amendment. The Lord is 
at hand seeking fruit on the tree of my life, and alas ! 
what fruits have I, sinner that I am, brought forth? 
The fruits of sin by deceit and injustice ; the fruits 
of sin by vice and sensuality ; the fruits of sin by 
enmity, hatred, envy, and uncharitv ; the fruits of sin 



The Barren Fig -tree. 83 

by intemperance and drunkenness ; the fruits of sin 
by swearing, cursing, perjury, and blasphemy; the 
fruits of sin by sacrilegious confessions and com- 
munions ; the fruits of sin O! miserable man 

that I am! for Hell for eternal condemnation! 

Oh, terrible moment for the godless sinner ! Oh, fearful 
torture and anguish of mind ! Oh, hopeless despair of 
his terror-struck soul ! Truly the Psalmist is right 
when he exclaims : " Mors peccatorum pessima ! ' 
" The death of the sinner is very evil ! "(Ps. xxxiii. 22.) 

When the godless King Antiochus, after living for 
many years in vice and wickednesses, amongst which 
stands forth the notorious act of sacrilege, the robbery 
of the sacred vessels in the temple at Jerusalem, ded- 
icated to the service of God, he was struck down by a 
mortal sickness and lay upon his death-bed. Then 
all the sin of his life came into his mind. In his 
anguish and terror he sent for his former friends 
and companions in his guilt, and in his despair he 
exclaimed : " Sleep is gone from my eyes and I am fallen 
away and my heart is cast down for anxiety ; and I said 
in my heart, Into how much tribulation am I come and into 
tohat floods of sorroiv wherein now I am ! I that was 
pleasant and beloved in my power ! but now I remember the 
evils that I have done in Jerusalem, from tohence also I took 
aivay all the spoils of gold and silver that were in it and I 
know, therefore, that for this cause these evils have found me. 
Behold I perish with great grief /" '(I. Mac. vi. 10-13.) 

Unhappy sinner, thou who hast only brought forth 
evil fruits in thy life, on thee also shall this anguish 
come at the hour of death, unless even now thou dost turn 
and bring forth fruits of repentance ; truly I say unto 
thee, this great grief shall come also upon thee and in 
despair and anguish thou wilt exclaim, as death draws 



84 The Barren Fig-tree. 

nigh : "Alas ! into how much tribulation am I come ? into 
what floods of sorrow wherein now I am ! I perish with 
great grief!" Mors peccalorum pessimal "Dreadful 
is the death of the sinner!" Yes, thy death, O sinner, 
will be an awful one, for on thy death-bed will the 
words of the Psalmist be fulfilled when he saith : 
" Peccator videbit." " The sinner shall see his misery," 
et irascetur, " and shall be wrath ;" dentibus suis fre- 
met et tabescet, " he shall gnash ivith his te( th and consume 
aivay" Desiderium peccatorum perebit, " The hope 
of the sinner shall come to shame" 



CHAPTER XII. 

The dreadful fate of the sinner if he does not repent and 
bring forth good fruit.— Conclusion. 



'Then after that thou shalt cut down the tree."— Lukexiii. 9. 



The Apostle St. Paul tells us that " we must all ap- 
pear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one 
may receive the proper things of the body, according as he 
has done, whether it be good or evih " (II. Cor. v. 10.) 
Listen to this, O sinner : " We all " Thou, therefore, 
also" must appear before the judgment-seat of Christ '' and 
to what end? To the end that every one who has done 
good may receive good, and he who has done evil — 
evil. What, therefore, I ask, what shalt thou receive, 
who on the tree of thy life hast nought but evil fruit ? 
What wilt thou receive, when thou art placed on the 
left hand of thy Judge ? What anguish, what despair 
will take possession of thy heart, knowing what the 
sentence of the Judge must be for thee ? " Everywhere," 
says the Prophet Amos, speaking of the last judg- 
ment, *' Everywhere there shall be ivailing and in all places 
they shall cry, Alas ! alas ! " (Amos v. 16) And out of thy 
mouth also shall come forth this cry of despair : " Woe 
is me ! woe is me ! alas ! alas ! Why ? — Behold ! above 
thee stands the righteous Judge, whom thou hast of- 



86 The Barren Fig-tree. 

fended, beside thee thine accusers, and the witnesses 
of thy crimes. " Thus says St. Augustine — 

a) Above thee the righteous Judge. And who is thy 
Judge? It is Jesus, the Son of God, into whose hands 
His Father has committed all judgment! It is Jesus, 
whom thou, O sinner, hast again aud again nailed to 
the cross as often as thou didst commit a mortal sin. 
It is Jesus, who each time that thou didst fall into 
the path of sin, ceased not to call out unto thee as 
once unto Saul : " O sinner ! sinner ! why dost thou per- 
secute me ? " It is Jesus, at whose blessed name the 
guards and soldiers on the Mount of Olives stopped 
and fell to the ground, Jesus, whose voice made the 
couraged Saul fall prostrate on the earth. Say, O 
sinner ! What wilt thou do, when on that awful day 
of judgment Jesus, thy Judge, shall call out to thee, 
saying : u I am Jesus, whom thou, " by the whole of 
thy sinful life, " hast persecuted. " Where shalt thou flee 
when thou shalt behold the angry face of thy Judge ? 
Wilt thou not exclaim with the Psalmist : " Lord, 
whither shall 1 ft if from Thy presence " ? (Ps. cxxxiii. 6.) 
What terror shall seize upon thee when from the lips 
of thy Judge shall proceed the words which He once 
spoke by His holy Prophet : " / will take vengeance on my 
enemies and requite those ivho hate me." (Numbers xxxii. 41.) 
At the sight of thy Judge wilt thou not, terror-struck, 
exclaim : " ye mountains, /all upon me, ye hills, cover 
me"? (Luke xxiii. 30.) 

And who is thy Judge ? It is Jesus — Jesus, 
the omniscient God, who, when on earth, knew 
the sinful thoughts of men ; He who foresaw the 
treachery of Judas, who foretold the denial of Peter. 
The omniscient Judge, before whose " eyes all things are 
naked and open ' (Heb. 4. 13) ; the omniscient Judge, 



The Barren Fig-tree. 87 

" whose eyes" saith the Prophet, "are brighter than the 
sun, penetrating into the very depths of the hearts of men." 
(Sir. xxiii. 26.) The omniscient Judge, who knows all thy 
wicked thoughts, who remembers all thy sinful words, 
who discerns all thy unholy desires ; to whom all the 
wicked deeds, and had they been done in the deepest 
darkness of the night, in the uttermost ends of the 
world, yea, in the depths of the earth, are clear as 
in the noon-day. Canst thou, O sinner, deceive this 
omniscient Judge ? Canst thou evade Him ? Canst 
thou hide thyself, as in a cloak, from Him ? 

And who is thy Judge ? It is Jesus — 

The just, once the merciful, but now only the just 
God, ivho putteth on justice as a breast-plate and will take 
true judgment instead of a helmet. (Wisdom v. 19.) He 
is the just Judge, who dealeth forth such righteous 
judgment that He saith with the Psalmist : " Ego 
justitias judicabo,'' "I will myself judge justice." He 
is the just Judge, over whose judgment-seat is 
written : " According to justice." He is no respecter 
of persons ; He judges according to justice. In 
His sight it is the same, whether thy head has 
borne a royal crown, or whether thy lot in life was 
among the lowest ; justice alone rules. In His sight 
it is the same, whether thou wast a rich man with 
millions at thy disposal, or whether thou didst beg 
thy bread from door to door ; justice alone rules. In 
His sight it is the same, whether thou wast held by 
the world in great honor, or whether thou wast looked 
down upon and despised ; justice alone rules. Think 
of it, O sinner ; He whom, by thy grievous sins, thou 
hast so often offended, He is thy Judge, who knoweth 
all thy sins and forgetteth none ; He is thy Judge, who 
punisheth all thy sins according to justice, leaving 
none unpunished. 



88 The Barren Fig-tree. 

Above thee is the angry Judge, and — 

b) At thy side thy accusers and their loitnesses. But 
what need is there of accusers ? What need of 
witnesses ? " I find no fruit on the tree,'' thus saith the 
lord of the vineyard ; I find no fruit, no good fruit in 
the soul, thus saith the omniscient Judge, " Whose eyes 
are brighter far than the sun." (Sir. xxxiii. 8.) I find no 
good fruit, nothing but countless sins and vices. And 
these sins j Christian soul, will follow thee into eternity, 
they will remain with thee at the last judgment ; for, as 
the Psalmist David exclaims : " Thou, Lord, hast 
spread out our misdeeds before thy face." (Ps. lxxxix. 8.) 
" In thine own heart dost thou carry a traitor," says St. 
Chrysostom, even thy own sins ; and St. Bernard says : 
" Thy sins will cry out to thee, saying : " We are thine, 
sinner, we are thy work, ive will not leave thee, but remain 
with thee forever." Yes, they will cry out : " O 
just Judge, show forth Thy justice and fulfil the 
words which Thou didst speak through Thy servant : 
' The tree which bringeth not forth good fruit shall be 
hewn down, and cast into the fire.'" (Matth. iii. 10.) 
What an awful moment for the sinner, when his own 
works accuse him and witness against him ? Verily, in 
that hour shall the sinner lament and exclaim in his 
bitter anguish : " ye mountains, fall upon me, ye hills, 
cover me." 

And there is yet another witness who is against thee: 
that holy being who during thy life-time defended and 
guarded thee, watching over thee, lest thy foot should 
knock against a stone, warning thee of sin and exhort- 
ing thee to bring forth good fruits for the kingdom of 
heaven, thy kind, thy best friend. 

Thy guardian-angel: he, alas ! is now thy foe, thy 
accuser before thy Judge. " All the holy guardian- 



The Barren Fig-tree. 89 

arngels," says Origen, "will be present at the judgment, 
and each one ivill bring up before the Judge the sold he has 
watched over in life, bearing witness how many years he 
has endeavored to urge the sinner to good and how his 
exhortations had been despised." Yea, not only will 
lie bear witness against the sinner, but lie will 
also invoke upon him the justice of God and say : 
I have tried, O Lord, to urge this soul to good 
and to preserve it from sin : / have tried to heal 
Babylon but she would not be healed. (Jerem.) Therefore, 

just Judge, show forth Thy justice ! What an awful 
moment for the sinner when his guardian-angel shall 
appear at the judgment as the angel of wrath. Verily 
in that hour shall the sinner wail and lament : " ye 
mountains," will he cry out, "fall upon me, ye hills, cover 
me I ? 

St. Basil tells us that there is yet another who 
will be present : '* The devil, who tempted us to sin, 
ivill be our accuser at the judgment-seat." And St. 
Cyprian observes : He will say: Never, just Judge, 
did I suffer for this soul now before theeas thou didst suffer; 

1 never endured stripes, nor bore the cross, nor shed my 
blood for him; neither did I ever promise him the kingdom 
of heaven. Yet me hath he served with all diligence and 
zeal, and brought me the costly offerings of his sins. Show 
forth, therefore, Thy justice, just Judge, and say that 
this soul is mine through her own guilt, because she would 
not be Thine through Thy grace." What a fearful mo- 
ment for the sinner. Truly, the hour is now come, in 
which he will cry and lament, saying : " ye moun- 
tains, fall upon me, ye hills, cover me !" 

But, alas, neither mountains nor hills can protect 
the unhappy sinner from the vengeance of the 
righteous Judge. The evil fruits which ha has borne, 



90 The Barren Fig-tree. 

the sins by which he has offended God, these require 
their chastisement and the justice of God's satisfaction. 
Hence the Judge at length pronounces the awful 
words : " Away, thou cursed one, into everlasting fire, pre- 
pared for the devil and his angels !" and the accursed one 
is cast into the abyss of hell. 

O unhappy tree, on whom the Lord found no good 
fruit, but only evil fruit ! Such is thy dreadful fate, 
to be cast into hell-fire, for it is written: "The tree 
which brlngeth not forth good fruit shall be hewn down 
and cast into the fire." How awful is the lot of the sin- 
ner when once the Judge has sentenced him to hell- 
fire ! O ye souls of the damned, lift up your voices, and 
tell us what hell is, chat we may yet preserve our- 
selves from it. 

Listen, how they make answer and say : " Hell is 
the place where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth 
forever and ever. " We suffer torments in these 
flames ; " and again they cry out : " Eye hath not seen, 
nor hath ear heard, neither hath it penetrated into the 
hearts of men to understand what torments God hath pre- 
pared in hell for those who hate Him, in hell where one tor- 
ture is heaped upon another. (St. Chrysostom.) Again; 
" No man knotveth, no man knoweth how severely God 
punishes in hell." ( St. Louis of Grenada.) " No human 
words can describe the agonies of punishment in 
hell." (St. Chrysostom.) 

Jesus, our Divine Saviour, tells it us Himself in the 
terrible sentence which he pronounces upon the 
damned : " Away from me, ye cursed ones, into everlasting 
fire." Look at the damned, they are away "from God," 
everlastingly separated from God, everlastingly separ- 
ated from that unspeakable bliss, from that fulness of 
joy enjoyed by those to whom it is given to see God in 



The Barren Fig-tree, 91 

Heaven ; everlastingly separated from that happiness 
and delight which God has prepared in Heaven for 
the blessed ; separated everlastingly from Mary the 
Queen of Heaven ; everlastingly separated from all 
the angels and saints who rejoice before the throne 
of God in untold joy ; everlastingly separated from 
their fathers and mothers, from their sisters and bro- 
thers, from all their friends and acquaintances, who had 
the infinite happiuess of entering into Heaven, whilst 
they were cast into hell. O terrible words : " Away 
from me " — away from God, away from the happiness 
of Heaven, away from all the saints and the blessed 
ones of Heaven! 

" Away from me, ye cursed ones ! ' Accursed for- 
ever by God because they are His foes, for mortal sin 
dwells forever within their souls and there is no 
longer for them the possibility of repentance ; cursed 
by all the blessed ones of heaven, because during 
their lifetime they have offended and blasphemed 
God, the highest good ; cursed by all the demons of 
hell, the avengers and tormentors one of the other. 
Cursed by all those whom they have led into sin 
and who by sin have been brought into the same 
place of torment. O dreadful word : Accursed by God, 
accursed by all the blessed in Heaven, accursed even 
by the devils and by the damned ! 

" Away from me, ye cursed ones, into everlasting fire ." 
All-merciful God! Is it true which Thou hast spoken ? 
Hast Thou indeed prepared for the sinner such an awful 
punishment as eternal fire ? Yes. The Lord has Himself 
declared it unto us, and has made it known to us through 
His apostles that the sinner's punishment shalt consist 
in everlasting fire, that so we may be warned from 
hell. Away from me, yc cursed, into eternal fire," is the 



92 The Barren Fig-tree. 

sentence of Jesus. Can these -words prove false? 
" / am tormented in these flames !" is the cry of one of the 
damned out of the depths of hell : can it be proven 
false? " Who shall dwell ivith everlasting burnings" Thus 
saith the Holy Ghost by the Prophet Isaiah (ch. xxxiv.) 
Can these words be false ? terrible fate of the sin- 
ner, an eternity of hell-fire ! O terrible fate in hell of 
the unbeliever, for " He who believeth not, shall be con- 
demned." O terrible fate in hell of the unchaste and 
the sensual, for " their portion will be in a burning pit of 
fire and brimstone." O terrible fate in hell of the unjust, 
the rancorous, the envious, the passionate, the profli- 
gate, the murderer, for " those who do such things shall 
not inherit the kingdom of God." (Gal. v. 19-21.) 

" Depart from me!" Such is the sentence upon all. 
" Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire ! O 
sinner, consider — " into everlasting Jive ! " Not for the 
short moment, such as was sufficient for the sin, no, 
forever ! Not for fifty, sixty, seventy years, according 
to the measure of the sinner's life ; no, forever ! Not 
for one century, not for thousands nor millions of years; 
no, forever! O eternity, eternity! how long art thou ? 
And the damned answer, " Forever! ,} eternity, eter- 
nity ! how many years dost thou number ? And the 
damned answer : " Forever and forever! O eternity, O 
eternity ! how long do thy torments endure? And the 
damned howl forth once more : "Forever, and forever, 
and forever! ' O eternity ! how fearful art thou ! O ven- 
geance of God upon the sinner, how awful art thou ! 

O Christian, as thou valuest the salvation of thy 
immortal soul, I beseech thee to bring forth good 
fruit, so that the Lord, when He cometh seeking fruit 
on the tree of thy life, may not say : " Cut down the 
tree" aijd cast it into the everlasting fire ! 



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